Tom Hardy Appreciation

Today is 38th birthday of the wonderfully talented and crazy intense Tom Hardy. He might have been 2 hours long late to the set each day during the making of Fury Road,  He might have been punching directors in the dick/chocking them(whichever happened on The Revenant set and was apparently, really justified) and he most definitely is every journalist's worst nightmare (1,2),

but damn if he isn't a sweetheart:
Tom has appeared in so many big movies during the last few years - Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Mad Max: Fury Road. He was in the movies that premiered at big festivals and were said to gain Oscar buzz soon - Lawless - or actually gained Oscar buzz - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Warrior. This year he was seen in Child 44, Fury Road and Legend, all of which he got great reviews for and now we are all awaiting The Revenant for which Tom has a good shot to get his first major award nominations.

The Revenant

You know there are some actors who seem kinda goofy in real life but are really intense on screen (Michael Fassbender comes to mind) but Hardy is intense everywhere. Even when he plays with dogs in talk shows, or jokes around at the press conference or - and that's especially effective - he plays sweet and nice characters in a film you have a sense of dread as if there was always a chance something will go off inside him. It's one of the reasons why his work in The Drop was so great - he was just splendidly cast - and a big reason why people keep comparing him to Marlon Brando.

What Tom does really well is being memorable and charismatic in every single part. Let's face it, Inception doesn't have characters that would be much more than cliches, yet Hardy managed to make his character so charming there. During Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy the only times I was awake was when he was on screen because he was one of the very few actors there who managed to make their characters feel like actual, alive human beings. In The Dark Knight Rises Hardy's face is covered with a mask for the entirety of the movie except for a very brief scene and he still managed to put so much emotion into Bane.

The Drop

In Peaky Blinders he plays a character so intense and terrifying, it's like watching a ticking time bomb. While The Drop is far from being a great movie you are just glued to the screen because there is a promise of such darkness hiding just underneath the surface of Hardy's character. Locke is a 85 minute long movie where it's just Hardy driving a car and talking on the phone and you cannot tear yourself away from the screen. And in Fury Road where he says maybe 50 words during the entire film he still made Max such an admirable hero and his chemistry with Charlize Theron is one of the best things about this incredible masterpiece which I don't think will be beaten by any movie this year.

In his private life Tom overcame alcohol and crack addictions and has been sober for more than a decade which is an amazing accomplishment. He is married and he is expecting his second child - first with wife Charlotte - whom him worked with several times (they even played the famous tortured lovers in Wuthering Heights adaptation which I have not seen yet our of the concern for my health. He plays Heathcliff, for the love of God.).

So in addition to being a family man and an amazing actor there is another thing. And that makes Tom pretty much my favorite actor at the moment:

It's

that

he

really

really

loves

dogs



I mean he really loves them.

So much.

In such a sweet way.

And ladies, there's also this:

Mad Max: Fury Road

Locke

• Leonardo DiCaprio convinced him to read the script of The Revenant (2015) and take the role of John Fitzgerald. They became friends after starring together in Inception (2010).
• Has appeared in four films with his idol Gary Oldman: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Lawless (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Child 44 (2015).
• He assumed that Christopher Nolan cast him as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) because of his performance in Bronson (2008). He later found out that Nolan thought he would be a good fit based of his performance in RocknRolla (2008) and had not even seen Bronson.
• He battled alcoholism and a crack cocaine addiction in his early-to mid-twenties, but has been sober since 2003. 
• Became a father for the 1st time at age 30 when his [now ex] girlfriend Rachael Speed gave birth to their son Louis Thomas Hardy on April 8, 2008.
•  Had a dog named Max that was given to him when he was a teenager, he passed away in 2011. The dog's name was an honor to Mad Max (1979). Years later, Hardy played the title character in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). 
• He joined Drama Centre London in September 1998 and was taken out early to work on Band of Brothers (2001). One of his classmates at drama school was Michael Fassbender, both appeared in Band of Brothers and Hardy stated that Fassbender was the best actor in the school.