The Brit actor gets another shot at stardom with a role in Christopher Nolan's latest blockbuster.
In the midst of all the visual complexity and storytelling wizardry in "Inception," the weekend's big box-office winner with a $60.4 million opening, one performance in particular shines through. Tom Hardy plays Eames, a forger on Leonardo DiCaprio's team of fantastical bandits who is capable of impersonating other people within a shared dream state.
From the very first time we meet him in a dusty Kenyan cafe, Eames comes across as an erudite ass-kicker, if such a thing is possible — a guy who can discuss intricate psychological issues at a PhD-level and then turn around and bust a few skulls. Hardy slips into Eames' sweaty skin for an effortless performance in which... well, it just never seems like he's acting.
Before last weekend, American audiences might not have remembered who Hardy is, but they certainly know now after his breakout "Inception" performance. He actually sports an impressive Hollywood résumé, and with the lead role in a rebooted "Mad Max" franchise in the works, Hardy's moment in the spotlight has finally arrived.
The 32-year-old Brit got his first break when he was in drama school and was cast in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's HBO miniseries, "Band of Brothers." From there, he landed in the urban warfare flick "Black Hawk Down." Hardy was poised to break onto the A-list, landing the role of the central villain in "Star Trek: Nemesis." But the film turned out to be critical failure and box-office dud that effectively ended that sci-fi franchise's big-screen run for seven years.
By that point, after a string of whirlwind successes, Hardy found himself utterly unprepared for the pressures of Hollywood life and falling into addictions to drugs and alcohol. "It was all in, like, 16 months. I thought, 'This is it!' and I wasn't prepared at all for any of the pressure. It manifested in panic and fear and lots and lots of drinking to bolster my courage," he told MTV News late last year. "I ended up in the hospital just after it came out. I broke down physically, spiritually, mentally."
Eventually Hardy got sober and retreated to theater work in the U.K. He'd pop up in films here and there, but in nothing close to the high-profile roles he enjoyed at the start of the decade. His American comeback began at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2009 with "Bronson," a biopic about England's most notorious prisoner. It was a buzzworthy performance, and while it hardly made a ripple at the box office, the film served as notice that Hardy was back.
"It hasn't changed the way I work at all," he explained. "But it's sort of a fishing thing — right place, right time — and offers have started to come in which weren't offered before. There are two sides to that story. I don't know how the industry works, how somebody becomes a hot property or not. But ['Bronson'] was definitely a good business card in that sense."
One of the directors who came calling was Christopher Nolan, who cast Hardy alongside DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in "Inception." Then in October, word surfaced that Hardy was circling the lead role in "Mad Max," taking over a franchise that launched Mel Gibson's career. Finally, it seems, Hardy is getting his due. It couldn't happen to a more talented and humble person. And this time around, Hardy is approaching his resurrected career with an entirely different attitude.
"If I feel anything is encroaching on my ability to stay stable and have a purpose in my life, then I'll bow out respectfully," he said. "I came very close to losing everything before, and it scarred me. I'm very proud of the mark, but I don't ever want to go there again."
Inception star Tom Hardy learns to ski in two days
When Inception director Christopher Nolan asked Tom Hardy “Can you ski?” The 32-year-old British actor thought he’d blown the audition.
Up until Nolan popped the question Hardy had thought the interview for the film that has since topped US and UK box office figures had been going really well.
"He asked me if I could ski and the conversation had been going so well until that point I thought, hmm, 'I could lie here,'” Hardy told Access Hollywood. “Then I thought, 'No, honesty is the best policy.' And I said, 'Chris, I can't ski at all'."
Luckily his winter sport deficiency didn’t cost him the role, though The Dark Knight director remembers the interview a little differently.
"I remember calling Tom Hardy and asking him, 'Can you ski?'” said Nolan. “There was a slight pause and I said, 'Well, the pause actually tells the whole story, Tom’."
Hardy still got the part but he had to do a two-day learn to ski crash course at the defunct Canadian ski resort of Fortress Mountain.
"Because I can't ski, at all, they gave me a crash course in skiing. For two days we were sent to Calgary, we were dispatched to the mountains to learn to ski and when you see it at the end of the movie, it's actually all of our own work," the actor recalled.
"[I was] bound and gagged and tied to the back of a skidoo and sent down a mountain at 40 miles an hour with Chris going, 'Come on Tom, come on!'"
Some scenes in the movie, which also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, were filmed at Fortress Mountain and locals are hoping that Hollywood’s spotlight on the resort might lead to its re-opening. It has been closed since 2006 after it was bought by Banff Rail Co. and has been plagued by lack of funding and local bureaucracy ever since.
As yet, there is no news whether the film company's work in the area will enable Fortress to re-open for the 2010-11 season.
The career advice from all this? Learn to ski or snowboard as you never know when it's going to come in handy.
Sources: 1, 2
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