Tom Hardy (12 page)

Tom had his own theory about why a new exploration of
Oliver Twist
would stand up in its own right. To him, it was the same as when approaching any classic like Dickens or Shakespeare – the material has been reinvented time and again but each time, the group of people working on the project can mould it into a new form. ‘Everybody’s got a perspective and [when] you get a team together, the alchemy on each project will be different from the last.’

Phelps’s refreshing and accomplished script was responsible for attracting a superior British cast to the production. In the spirit of bringing a new slant to the story, some of the actors appointed were ones you might not readily think of as being a conventional fit for these established Dickens characters. Traditionally, actors who have played Fagin have been thin and stooped but, in a genius move, Timothy Spall was cast to play him. Phelps knew she wanted the actor who played Fagin to be ‘somebody more expansive’ than in the past and, with Spall, they created a Fagin who was more colourful and complex than previous incarnations. He is charming but beneath the charm lies a steely desire for self-preservation. ‘He manages to use his warmth as a channel for his deviousness,’ observed Spall of his character.

Julian Rhind-Tutt, better known for his role in cult comedy
Green Wing
was cast as the sinister Monks, Oliver’s nemesis;
and Sarah Lancashire (previously the bubbly Raquel in
Coronation Street
) was to be the conniving, grasping Mrs Corney. Rob Brydon, better known for his comedy acting, was to play the unyielding judge, Mr Fang. Unconventional choices, but they all brought something new and surprising to their characters.

The casting decisions for
Oliver Twist
were vital in giving it more resonance with the 21st century. There has traditionally been a tendency to portray Oliver as an angelic, naïve, slightly wet lad – and the actors who have played him have often had accents which sound more like Surrey schoolboy than workhouse orphan. When writing her Oliver, Sarah Phelps had a clear idea of what she wanted from her protagonist. Oliver is an orphan who has been passed from baby farm to the grim confines of the workhouse. He’s been hungry his whole life, mistreated, but has had enough nerve to challenge the figures of authority around him. Phelps’s Oliver would be no angel: he would be a tough child, albeit with a good, kind soul.

Having auditioned 750 boys, Maggie Lunn then happened to ask a friend if she knew any young actors who would be suitable for the role. This friend knew the mother of William Miller and he was put forward for the part. He was ideal in looks and in personality: he had brown hair, startling, honest eyes and he radiated confidence. ‘He looks beautiful but he’s a little fighter and he looks people in the eye, which is what I wanted with my Oliver – that he looks Bill Sikes in the eye.’

Her decision was spot on – Miller nailed completely what she had wanted to achieve with the character. There is a scene which captures the essence of this Oliver perfectly. It is one in
which he looks Sikes straight in the eye and tells him that he’s not scared of him because he’s already seen worse in his life, and it is one of the most powerful and affecting in the drama. The
Independent
was effusive in its praise for Miller in the lead role, saying: ‘The real casting coup is 11-year-old William Miller as an Oliver far removed from the wan child actor who usually inhabits the role. Miller is also probably a far cry from the somewhat soupy Oliver that Dickens created, but the story is better for it.’

Casting Sophie Okonedo as Nancy was also an inspired choice. Phelps admitted that she was fed up with period dramas set in London always being dominated by white faces and was determined that her Nancy would be black or mixed race. In reality, the London of Dickens’ time was ethnically diverse – it was home to Jewish and Irish immigrants and by the mid-19th century there were already second and third generation black Africans living in the capital. Okonedo brought to Nancy a balance of fearlessness and tenderness.

The relationship between Bill Sikes and Nancy is another part of
Oliver Twist
we might assume we already know inside out. But this new script and the pairing of Sophie Okonedo with Tom Hardy meant that the focus was not solely on the abusive nature of their relationship. Instead it sought to show that affection and a chemistry of sorts was present between them. In this drama, the killing of Nancy is as violent as ever but we subsequently see Sikes unable to come to terms with the reality that his blows have killed her. He deludes himself into thinking that he’s given her a punishment beating and implores her to get up, struggling to let his eyes rest on what he has done. When Bill goes on the
run with Oliver, his guilt is in evidence as he is haunted by visions of Nancy (which is referred to in Dickens’ book but which is often left out of dramatisations).

Bill Sikes is unquestionably a bully who maintains his status through intimidation and violence, but to have played him as a larger-than-life aggressor was neither what this new take on the story required, nor was it how Tom wanted to develop the character. In the 1968 film of
Oliver!
Oliver Reed had put in a masterful and memorable performance as Sikes. It was impossible for Tom to ignore Reed’s portrayal but he was confident in his own interpretation of the man. ‘I could never go up against a performance as classic as that. Oliver Reed played Bill as this horrible, booming, alcoholic brawler. I play him softer, a bit sensual and maybe a bit more pathetic,’ Tom told
The New Review
magazine.

In making this an
Oliver Twist
relevant to today’s society, Bill was presented as a threatening presence but also as a man who displays certain vulnerabilities. This was familiar territory to Tom who, rather than play these kinds of baddies at full throttle, always pulled back and sought out their weaknesses to create more convincing and shaded characters. He did his homework on developing a 360-degree Sikes, saying, ‘What’s interesting for me to explore is where the vulnerability is going to be with a character like Bill,’ he said. ‘This manifests itself in relationships with Nancy and Bullseye – and gin… he’s trying to fill something with the companionship of a good woman, with the dog and with getting out of his head, which to me immediately ring [sic] alarm bells of somebody who needs a cuddle.’

He also admitted that the character research and
development he had been putting into prisoner Charles Bronson would be coming in useful for Bill Sikes. The filming of Bronson had been delayed by a year, so ‘I put a lot of the work I did on him into Bill’.

Tom’s portrayal of Bill Sikes is mesmerising. Every scene in which he appears is infused with knife-edge tension and he is like a coiled spring, waiting to be triggered. This character doesn’t show his brutal side by being ostentatiously belligerent but succeeds in being terrifying by his stillness – the softly spoken words and penetrating stares are enough to make the blood run cold. Writing in the
Sunday Telegraph
, John Preston summed up Tom’s performance perfectly, saying: ‘This was by far the most sinister Sikes I’ve ever seen – this was a man seething with aggression, his eyes forever roaming round seeking someone to bottle or bash.’

The fact that the drama was filmed in London added to its air of authenticity. As previously mentioned, budget restraints have forced the making of many dramas out of the UK and into Eastern Europe. In fact, Roman Polanksi’s feature-length adaptation of
Oliver Twist
was filmed in the Czech Republic. For this
Oliver
, though, director Coky Giedroyc and production designer Grenville Horner devoted time to scouring London for appropriate locations for filming and then decided how they would fit those locations into the story. Horner knew that he didn’t want to just copy how other period dramas had tried to depict London and instead went back to some illustrative source material from Dickens’ time for his references.

Each part of the drama has a unique look to capture the changing mood depending on where Oliver is on his journey.
The workhouse is filmed in grey tones (to match the gruel, which was in fact Ready Brek made with water, with a dash of black food colouring thrown in); London, by contrast, is full of bustle and noise; Fagin’s den is intriguing and colourful while the sanctuary represented by Brownlow’s house is all cool colours and clean lines.

The hard work and careful thought that had gone into ensuring that this production held its own as an interpretation of the Dickens story paid off. 8 million viewers tuned in to watch the first episode, which was aired on 18 December 2007. Most critics, too, seemed to appreciate
Oliver Twist
and agreed that it was a dark and brooding piece with a magnificent cast. The
Sunday Telegraph
even stated that, had five stars not been their highest rating for a show, they would have given
Oliver Twist
six stars. Praise indeed!

As for Tom, he’d had a ball. He’d admitted that he’d loved the rollercoaster nature of Dickens stories and likened them to oscillating between the mood of
Taxi Driver
one minute, and Disneyworld the next. ‘
Oliver Twist
is a great thing to be a part of – and I’m in it!’ he enthused.

Other actors on set had been delighted to work with Tom. Young William Miller commented: ‘The crew is nice, the actors are nice, especially Tom Hardy, he’s really cool.’ And Rob Brydon had nothing but praise for him, saying: ‘Tom is an extraordinary talent and an impressive individual.’

‘I’m an actor, for f***k’s sake. I’m an artist. I’ve played with anything and anyone.’

Tom Hardy is known for his honesty when being interviewed. He is forthcoming, entertaining and rapid-fire.
Just occasionally, though, his unchecked truthfulness can create an undesired media storm. The above quote, for example, was Tom’s response to a question asked of him during an interview with
Attitude
magazine in 2008. The question was ‘Have you ever had sexual relations with men?’ and had been asked because Tom’s latest character, Handsome Bob in Guy Ritchie’s film
RocknRolla
had come out as gay during the course of the film.

The press, of course, went into overdrive and the quote was re-quoted, written about and pulled apart for days afterwards. Subsequently – and probably growing increasingly tired of having the statement thrown back at him – Tom explained that he was referring to the work he had done as an actor, not about his personal life. In 2011, he clarified matters further in an interview with
Marie Claire
magazine, still annoyed that his words had been misconstrued: ‘I have never put my penis in a man,’ he declared starkly. ‘If that’s what you like, cool. But it doesn’t do it for me.’ Sorted.

Guy Ritchie had made a name for himself as a director with
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels in 1998. It was a stylised, punchy criminal caper and was credited as being the film that revived the gangster genre for the modern era. He followed it up in 2000 with
Snatch
, which was in a similar vein and also well received. Unfortunately for Ritchie, he then turned out two commercial flops in the form of the
much-ridiculed
Swept Away
(made with his then-wife Madonna) and
Revolver
, which was given a hearty thumbs down by reviewers who criticised it for having an overly complicated, pretentious plot.
RocknRolla
was being touted as Ritchie’s return to form as he revisited the familiar territory of a pacy
gangland tale – albeit a more cuddly one than conventional underworld films. ‘I just like the underworld because it is an efficient polarisation of humans. My protagonists flirt with the law and have probably done a few naughty things but are actually good guys,’ he stated when asked about the nature of the films he made.

The plot was, unsurprisingly, formulaic. It seemed that Ritchie’s earlier triumphs were a blend of certain ingredients which had equalled success and he was sticking to his recipe. The film weaves itself around a story involving a property scam and a bunch of shady characters including a rather obviously named Russian billionaire Omovich (who just happens to have a stake in a London football club – wink, wink); gangland boss Lenny, played by Tom Wilkinson; underworld minnow One Two (Gerard Butler) and his two sidekicks Mumbles (Idris Elba) and the aptly-named Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy). Also roaming around in the action are junkie pop star Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), a crooked accountant played by Thandie Newton and Mark Strong as Lenny’s right-hand man. As usual, there’s a spider’s web of relationships between the characters, each of them owing money to another higher up the food chain or being in possession of valuables that belong to someone else.

Handsome Bob is the getaway driver for the rag-tag gang of hoodlums headed up by One Two – ironic considering at this point Tom had not yet learned to drive! Bob also turns out to be the lynchpin of the surprising sub-plot. In this
testosterone-fuelled
, macho film, Ritchie throws the audience a curveball by having Handsome Bob reveal that he is gay. This narrative strand marked out
RocknRolla
as being different from his
other films and perhaps, as it came out 10 years after
Lock Stock
, the storyline was a gesture at giving the film a more
up-to
-date feel.

The pivotal scene for Tom’s character comes the night before he is about to be sent to prison. One Two has organised what he thinks will be a send-off to remember for his friend, involving strippers and excess. Handsome Bob, though, is not cheered by the prospect and, while in the car with One Two, admits to him that he is gay and that it is One Two who is the object of his desire. There follows a scene that brings a smile to the face in which Bob and One Two dance, awkwardly, in a clinch in a salsa club. This touching moment was, according to Tom, his favourite part of filming.

Handsome Bob was based on a real-life gangster who had apparently come out to one of the writers of the film. ‘But the real guy sounded a lot tougher than Handsome Bob,’ admitted Tom to
Out
magazine. He went on to make it clear that he was pleased that his character had been taken in this direction by Ritchie, that it felt good to shake up perceptions in a film that would generally be considered fodder for alpha males: ‘Playing a gay man in a Guy Ritchie movie is a finger up to that whole attitude of men talking about men doing men’s thing, which is so f*****g narrow-minded. Handsome Bob is what a man should be – except for the part of him taking a crowbar to the back of someone’s head.’