Tom Hardy

By David Thomson

2008 BRONSON CHARLES BRONSON
Tom seemed a sweet boy, not too tall, occasionally plump, with a big, soft mouth and a slippery voice. He had done drugs, which had ended his first marriage. Then he played Handsome Bob, gay and nasty in “RocknRolla” (2008). But the decisive step of that year was “Bronson”, a celebration of existential crime, as intimidating to other actors as Robert De Niro’s “Raging Bull” in 1980. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, this biopic is a savage reappraisal of our cult of solitary monsters. It is as funny as it is fearsome, and a ground-breaking onslaught. Not such a nice boy?

2009 WUTHERING HEIGHTS HEATHCLIFF
Directed by Coky Giedroyc (who in 2007 had cast Hardy as Bill Sikes in her “Oliver Twist”), this television adaptation may not be Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”. But there is an uninhibited, sexy chemistry as Hardy’s Heathcliff meets the staring eyes of Charlotte Riley’s Cathy. You didn’t really have to be told that the two actors would end up married – it’s rather more that, in 2009, they didn’t seem to need a script or hear “Cut!”. All of which suggests that, despite his inclination towards playing epic criminality, Tom Hardy could still be a great romantic lead.