Tom Hardy (7 page)

The character of Jack Rose is essentially the hero of the piece: dependable, honest and brave, he stands in stark contrast to deceitful, selfish Nick McGrade who wants to keep Rose's love Lizzie for himself by any means possible. Tom
described Rose as ‘an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances' and this was a change from the kind of role the actor was accustomed to taking. ‘I've never played a straight lead before,' he mused. ‘I normally get tortured characters and villains and angry young men.' Fortunately for Tom, he did get the chance to delve back into his tough-guy store cupboard, for a scene in which he comes to physical blows with Willis.

Tom recognised that, as in
Band of Brothers
, a delicate touch was required when bringing Jack Rose to life. Although the characters were fictional, he was all too aware that they were representations of people who had experienced incarceration in Colditz. ‘People have died in these uniforms. It's important that this drama pays tribute to what those guys did,' he told the
Independent
in 2005.

Colditz
saw Tom reunited with his
Band of Brothers
co-star
, Damian Lewis. While Lewis was complimentary about Tom and predicted great things for him in the future, he also joked about how, in both productions, Tom's character had been the one who'd had all the luck with women. ‘I always resented Tom for turning up on
Band of Brothers
and getting the girl – in fact, the only girl in a cast of hundreds of smelly men! I, on the other hand, spent eight months with my face squashed up against someone else's backside in one sodden trench after another. And it looks as if Tom might have got the girl again, damn his eyes,' Lewis joked to the
Sunday
Mercury
. Tom was eager to return the praise, expressing how pleased he was to be working with Lewis again, who had coincidentally also recently appeared in a production at the Almeida. ‘I've been on his heels for a bit so it was good to work with him – he's a character,' said Tom.

It's interesting to note that when he spoke about appearing in the drama, Tom made reference to the brief spell of time that actors have to explore their characters when confined by production timetables. As well as shooting, actors would also be reading the script, trying to cram in research and getting to know the story. It was this scarcity of preparation time that had been one of the principal reasons for the formation of Shotgun – it was a space where actors could come and explore their characters in the company of other professionals.

Colditz
was broadcast over Easter weekend in 2005, as part of ITV's commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of the War. Though the actors had all done their best to be respectful to veterans of the Second World War, some of the men who had been incarcerated in Colditz didn't respond positively to the programme. Amongst the criticisms levelled at it were that it didn't offer a true representation of what life had been like within the confines of the prison. A scene in which German officers carry out a mock execution was deemed to be too far from the truth. ‘That sort of mock execution did not go on at Colditz and to pretend it did is just not acceptable,' said a former Colditz prisoner, Ken Lockwood, when speaking to the
Telegraph
. ‘Both sides appreciated the other's point of view and as time went on some of the Germans grew to respect us.' It was also pointed out that there were some costume errors and that the set looked far too flimsy to be a high-security fortress from which there was little hope of escape.

Naturally, the producers rallied to its defence, stating that some liberties had been taken in order to broaden the appeal of the drama. They needed to reach a prime-time ITV
audience, which was a significantly younger demographic than that which made up the voices of dissent.

Television critics were equally unimpressed with
Colditz
and adopted a rather scornful stance in their notices about the show. Most agreed that, while the drama had started with promise and had chosen lead actors with discernible talent, by the second instalment, it had rather lost its way and become a bit of a joke. The
Scotsman
described it as lurching from ‘schlock romance' to ‘a clever pastiche of
The Great Escape
'. The
Daily Mail
was more scathing and declared that by its conclusion, it had ‘degenerated into a rather silly melodrama capped by a soppy ending'.

For Tom, though, the experience had given him a chance to try something different from his regular roll-call of villains and maladjusted characters and he remained as determined as ever to make his work shine. He has often asserted that his job is to observe and then depict, not to offer comment. ‘I just came to tell a story and be part of a story' he said of his time on
Colditz
. ‘There's no wrong, really, there's just bad acting and then there's convincing acting. And somehow I'd like to do the work.'

If you are a Hardy superfan who feels the need to watch everything he's ever been in – and he has a dedicated following of ardent admirers who do – you might just want to skip the film
EMR
when filling your online shopping cart with Hardy goodies. While it's a perfectly watchable conspiracy story with an interesting twist, Tom's appearance in it is brief, to say the least. In fact, if you acquired it specifically because his name is in the credits, you would be more than a little disappointed.
For the sake of completeness, it is necessary to record that, in 2004, this independent film was released and Tom had a role in it – there is little more to say than that.

The year of 2004 had, however, been deemed by the media to be the start of a new era in British film. A slew of UK talent was attracting attention from across the Atlantic thanks to a succession of small-budget films that had performed well stateside. This was great for young actors such as Tom who were looking to gain more exposure and good news for Brit flicks looking to attract big investment.

It would be hard to find a more British film than
Layer Cake
. The book on which the film is based was the debut novel of JJ Connolly, and it led reviewers to declare him the new voice in British crime fiction. Set in gangland London in the nineties, the story is narrated by a nameless, low-key drug dealer aged 29 who is desperately trying to extricate himself from the game before he reaches 30.

In 2001, a copy of the book was sent to SKA Films, the production company of Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn (the director/producer dream team behind
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
). Originally, it was Ritchie who agreed to adapt the story for the screen and Vaughn undertook his usual role of raising the finance to make the picture. However, after delays in securing the rights to make
Layer Cake
, Ritchie became too busy with other projects to be able to commit to directing it. Vaughn was already heavily involved with the film creatively and was understandably reluctant to hand over the directorial reins to a third party, so he opted to make the film his directorial debut. It was a challenge for him as, prior to
Layer Cake
, had only been involved in the production side of
movies; now, he needed to cut his teeth on the creative aspects of film-making.

It was JJ Connolly himself who adapted the book into the film's screenplay, and shooting took place over the summer of 2003. Cast in the main role of the nameless narrator (listed simply as XXXX in the film's credits) was Daniel Craig. At this stage, Craig was a reasonably well known character actor but had not yet attached himself to the juggernaut Bond franchise. ‘When I first met Matthew he fired me up about the film, and I read the script in one sitting,' enthused Craig to Nick Curtis of the
Evening Standard
.

The film was, in fact, awash with a host of familiar and brilliant British actors: Michael Gambon, Kenneth Cranham, Dexter Fletcher and Jamie Foreman, to name a few. Prior to winning the part of Tammy in
Layer Cake
, Sienna Miller had probably been best known for her role as Jude Law's real-life girlfriend. In this movie, she proved that she could be so much more than that. There are also two trusted sidekicks who work as part of XXXX's close-knit team. One is Clarkie, the part played by Tom, who is described in the opening scenes of the film as having a double first in Industrial Chemistry from Cambridge. The other is Terry, played by Tamer Hassan, who provides the brawn to complement Clarkie's brains.

Another, uncredited, star of the film is London itself. Those who call London home and love the familiar sights of their city were delighted to see it make a significant contribution to the atmosphere of the film. Locations that were used for various parts of the story were mews houses in Kensington (XXXX's home), The Regency Café in Victoria (where Morty exacts a violent attack) and the St Martin's Lane hotel in
Covent Garden (a memorable scene, where Tammy appears in all her lingeried glory, much to male movie-goers' delight).

The poster campaign rolled out just prior to
Layer Cake
's cinematic release was nothing if not striking. The artwork had been the brainchild of advertising executive Trevor Beattie and, if you weren't already familiar with the story, seemed somewhat cryptic. Rather than featuring any of the stars of the film, the posters instead carried an image of a yellow Range Rover with an iron perched on the bonnet, a scorch mark around the iron clearly visible. The producers, Sony, whom Vaughn had persuaded to come on board, apparently disliked the posters but they seemed to intrigue British cinema-goers and were successful in enticing them to go and see the film. And, of course, once you'd watched the film, you could rest smug in the knowledge that you were one of those who understood the meaning of the campaign artwork.

It would have been difficult for the producers to raise too many objections to any part of
Layer Cake
once it had been released: the box office figures spoke for themselves. It took over
£
1 million in its opening weekend and almost
£
3 million in the first fortnight. It seemed that Vaughn's worries about not having directed before could be laid to rest: British film audiences liked his style (which was less knockabout than his partner Guy Ritchie's) and he had made a genuine and stylish gangster movie. Tom's role in the film had been a relatively small one, but he had been part of a tremendous success story. Thanks to its favourable reception in the UK, when
Layer Cake
opened in the USA the following year, Sony went all out to promote it. It was a strong, credible piece of work for Tom's CV.

Although he'd had some experience of the Hollywood movie-making machine, Tom was all too aware how difficult it could be to secure the roles for which you were put forward. You could be the most gifted actor in the world but if you didn't have the right look for a part, it would slip through your fingers. Tom is undeniably handsome and oozes sex appeal (if in doubt just refer to the mass of adoring comments posted alongside any photograph of him displayed on the internet). His looks and physique, though, do mark him out for particular kinds of roles such as misfits, villains and rogues – the kinds of parts that he has spent the majority of his career inhabiting. There is one character, however, you probably wouldn't associate with him too readily, yet who Tom was desperate to play – a character from literary fiction who has become synonymous with one of Tom's fellow Drama Centre old boys, Colin Firth.

As Tom tells it, he came tantalisingly close to winning the part of Mr Darcy in the 2005 big screen adaptation of
Pride
and Prejudice
, in which Keira Knightley played Lizzie Bennett. Suited and booted, Tom had duly turned up for the scheduled meeting with Hollywood big cheese Stacey Snider. In spite of his best efforts, she deemed him unsuitable for the role, exclaiming: ‘Babe, every woman in the world has an impression of who Darcy is and you're just not it.'

‘That hurt, that really hurt,' recalled Tom to the
Telegraph
. ‘I'd worn a blue shirt and jeans and a blue blazer and been doing my best Hugh Grant impression. But now I was back to playing the wonky skewiff-teeth kid with the bow legs.'

Poor Tom! Despite being brought up in East Sheen and attending public school, he was too much of a bad boy to be
the nation's favourite literary hero. Although he admits his imperfect teeth may have contributed to his not obtaining the role, to date, he has refused to succumb to the Hollywood norm of getting them fixed. And long may that decision last – he wouldn't be our Tom without his characteristic, imperfectly charming grill.

On the other side of the coin, there are also countless productions to which the media attaches actors that they ultimately do not pursue. In 2004, the press was excitedly reporting details of a film in the offing about the death of Rolling Stone Brian Jones. Stephen Woolley was in the director's chair for the movie and Tom Hardy was one of the names reported to be in talks to play the role of Brian Jones. The film,
The Wild and Wycked
[sic]
World of Brian Jones
, had been a decade in development, but by the early part of 2004 was ready to go into production. The
Evening Standard
stated that Tom was ‘first in line for the part of Jones' but, as is so often the case – and for whatever reason – as quickly as he had been linked to the movie, he was no longer connected to it. Ultimately, the part went to newcomer Leo Gregory, though established actors such as Paul Bettany and Jonathan Rhys Myers had also been rumoured to be up for the part.

This particular role was not to be the one for Tom, but he had little to worry about on the work front. There was no shortage of jobs for the actor and, at this period in his life, that was a blessing. His breakdown was still the recent past and he was a recovering addict with a void to fill. In an interview with the
Irish Times
in 2009, he analysed his post-collapse career and remarked that, subsequent to his rehabilitation, his priority was to fill his time with work – he needed one job after
the next to keep pushing himself forward, away from his demons. ‘People say to be careful when you get sober because then you get your feelings back. I was very lucky because I got job after job after job, but I was always working for the next job and I was never really in the moment.'