Tom Hardy (14 page)

‘Tom Hardy… makes a compelling, wounded, shuffling Stuart,’ wrote the
Guardian
, stating that the piece was ‘a remarkable one-off film.’ Rachel Cooke, writing in the
New Statesman
, though, summed it up the most accurately. She said of Cumberbatch that ‘he brought Masters alive with the smallest of tics – slow-blinking myopic eyes, the odd wry look
– and managed to avoid making him seem like a patronising prig’. She went on to say: ‘It was Hardy, though, who broke your heart. I can’t remember the last time I saw a performance as convincing as this. Hardy was Stuart, and every time he was on screen – which was most of the time – I was mesmerised.’

Deservedly, Tom was nominated for the 2008 Best Actor British Academy Television Award. He was up against Andrew Garfield for
Boy A
, Matthew Macfadyen for
Secret Life
and Anthony Sher for
Primo
. Sadly, this time, the award went not to Tom but to Andrew Garfield.

Although the recognition that came with the award would have been a positive affirmation, Tom didn’t really need it to validate the work he had done on
Stuart
. He recognised that he had put heart and soul into a character he had come to know, understand and love. Those who had seen the film also recognised that, surely, now Tom was going to be the actor everyone wanted to see more of. It almost seemed as if the work he had been doing had been building to this point – the timing was fortuitous and he had been at a stage in his career when he was ready to immerse himself in such a complex part. Reflecting on what he had learned from the experience, Tom stated thoughtfully: ‘He’s an odd superhero, but that’s what he was for me. He made me grow and he made me think about what I want with my career.’ He also claimed that Stuart was the best role he’d ever had and was ever likely to have again. ‘I could stop now, technically. I’m not going to, because I love the craft.’

The motivation to continue improving his skills meant that Tom was eager to keep pushing forward, ready to test himself
with a new challenge. Luckily, a second career-defining role was just around the corner.

‘My name’s Charles Bronson and all my life I’ve wanted to be famous.’ The opening line of
Bronson
, aside from being controversial, encapsulated what its Danish director, Nicolas Winding Refn, hoped to explore when making his film about the life of the prisoner. What drove Bronson’s desire for notoriety? How had he managed to build a mythology around himself? For the director at least, the film was not to be a straightforward biopic but a piece that used Charles Bronson as a means to examine one man’s relationship with fame.

Charles Bronson was born Michael Peterson on 6 December 1952. His upbringing in Luton was unremarkable but when the family moved to Merseyside, he apparently fell in with the wrong crowd and his behaviour grew increasingly violent. He was originally sentenced to seven years in prison in 1974 for a bungled post office robbery – the sum total of the loot being just
£
26.18. The gun he took with him for the job wasn’t loaded.

He changed his name to Charles Bronson during a stint as a bare-knuckle fighter, his promoter insisting he needed a more exciting fighting name. In prison, Bronson’s violence continued and saw him lashing out at officers, fellow prisoners and prison workers. His charge sheet grew and amongst the offences he racked up were wounding with intent, criminal damage and GBH. It seemed the system didn’t know what to do with him, and time and again he was transferred between prisons. He was eventually deemed criminally insane and sent to Broadmoor Hospital where, in 1983, he famously led a rooftop protest.

He was released in 1988, having been declared sane. Free for just 68 days, he was imprisoned again after stealing an engagement ring for his fiancée. He was released in November 1992 and spent only 58 days as a free man before being sentenced for conspiracy to rob. That was, to date, the last time Bronson lived outside prison walls; in 2000, he was sentenced to life for holding a prison teacher hostage.

Bronson has spent much of his prison life in solitary – 33 years of it, in fact. He has very limited contact with the outside world and keeps himself occupied (when permitted) with art. He is a talented artist and has won six Koestler awards for his work. He takes pride in keeping himself fit despite only having four walls to use as gym equipment and has even published a book called
Solitary Fitness
, which describes how to stay in shape in prison. In fact, Bronson’s publishing output has been quite phenomenal for someone inside and he has written a host of books including his life story and even a guide to Britain’s prisons,
The Good Prison Guide
.

Bronson is an expert in drawing attention to himself – he will never allow himself to be just be a number, lost in the prison system. He makes sure the public know who he is and that he will not be forgotten. As Tom put it: ‘His fame keeps him safe.’ Winding Refn was clear from the start that the personality of the figure would be key to the film and when he read the first draft of the script, he felt more could be done to infuse it with greater character. Hence we see the varied elements of Bronson’s personality through different prisms during the film: he is a narrator telling his story, he is a performer and he is an artist.

The path that led Tom to
Bronson
was not a smooth one. He and Nicolas Winding Refn had initially tried to get the project off the ground together but had not seen eye to eye on certain aspects of it. Later on, after the film had been released, the pair were able to look back at that time and joke that they had ‘hated each other’! Having parted company, Winding Refn went off to work on the script for a year and Tom went away and immersed himself in other projects. When they met again, the chemistry needed to make the film was there. According to Winding Refn, Tom had grown as an actor and he could now envisage him as Charles Bronson. Tom agreed with this, saying ‘there was a succession of characters that sort of led me there…’

There were also some press stories that circulated at the time, implying that Bronson was unhappy that the film had faltered and that Tom was rumoured not to be in it any more. Bronson himself had seen Tom in
Oliver Twist and Stuart: A Life Backwards
and had liked what he’d seen. ‘I know he will play the part of me really well,’ he said. ‘Plus my mum likes him, so he can’t be bad, can he?’ The ultimate seal of approval.

For Tom to be able to develop his Charles Bronson character – and also so that he could gain his subject’s approval on certain elements of the story – he needed to see the man in person. This was no mean feat. Prison authorities had got wind of the fact that a film about Bronson’s life was in the offing and were staunchly opposed to it. In fact, when it was announced that the film was to be made, Bronson wasn’t permitted to receive correspondence relating to it, nor was he allowed to see visitors connected with it. This of course applied to Tom, who was denied access to him. So
incensed was Bronson that he consulted his lawyer and a letter was fired off to the governor of Wakefield prison, where Bronson was at that time incarcerated. His letter stated: ‘Tom Hardy is a proposed visitor who has been vetted by police and passed. But he has been stopped by the governor here for no other reason than a “power decision”. Give Tom Hardy a pass or let’s take it to court and let a judge decide who’s right or wrong.’ It did the trick and Tom was granted a visiting order.

Bronson is sometimes touted, unfairly, in the media as being Britain’s answer to Hannibal Lecter because of the highly secure conditions in which he is kept. So one would imagine that going to see him would be like undertaking Clarice Starling’s tortuous walk down the dark, threatening corridor at the end of which is the prisoner, spookily illuminated. Not a bit of it. Tom described going to see Bronson as a much more clinical affair. ‘It was more like visiting a patient in a hospital,’ he stated.

Others who have been to see Bronson in Wakefield prison report that upon arrival, the visitor is greeted by a sniffer dog to detect if they are carrying any drugs. This is followed by a security process similar to one you might experience at an airport. Visitors are prohibited from taking anything at all in with them, not even so much as a pen. The only concession to this is some small change, so that you can buy Bronson’s favourite soft drinks and chocolate from the prison’s vending machine. The journey to see him takes you through three or four pairs of double gates which are opened and locked again one at a time. The visitor is shown into a room and Bronson is shown into a cell on the other side of it – there’s a barred
gap of about two square metres in the wall and Bronson and his visitor converse through the gap, sat on chairs bolted to the floor.

Bronson enjoys having visitors and the session usually lasts a couple of hours. He will sometimes entertain his visitor with a display of his fitness, such as hand-stand press ups. The visit will ordinarily be rounded off with one of Bronson’s crushingly strong handshakes.

Understandably, Tom was nervous about meeting Bronson for the first time. He felt a slight unease about his motivation for being there – he was not there in an official capacity, but to draw inspiration from Bronson and to study him. ‘I can do an impression of Charles Bronson to a certain extent but then I was face to face with my subject and I’m not any relation to him. I’m not his family, a friend, a doctor or a social worker. I have no official capacity to help him. I’m there to pretend to be him,’ he commented, when speaking to the
indieLondon
website. Tom’s anxieties were allayed when Bronson greeted him through the wall with: ‘Tom Hardy? Bill Sikes? What a part. You was robbed of that BAFTA.’

One thing that did concern Bronson at this first meeting was Tom’s physical appearance. Tom was still slight of frame from
Stuart
and Bronson couldn’t for the life of him see how he was ever going to resemble him in the slightest. Bronson recounted the moment in an audio message he recorded for the premiere of the film. ‘He’s ’avin a f*****g laugh. No disrespect to Tom but I don’t think he weighed 12 stone soaking wet. I’m 16 ½ stone, solid muscle.’ Tom reassured him that they were flying over his trainer to bulk him up and that, within weeks, he would have transformed to Bronson
size. He didn’t disappoint and Bronson was impressed when he next saw him a few weeks later: ‘When he come back and seen me [sic] two months later, he was bigger than me… he had muscle where muscle shouldn’t be!’

Over the course of several visits and phone calls, a friendship developed between the two men. The interaction between them, as well as being enjoyable and rewarding, was all grist to the mill for Tom who needed to hear Bronson speak and watch his mannerisms so that he could build a realistic portrait of the man to use on set.

When Tom spoke to the media about the film, the burning question on interviewers’ lips always seemed to be: ‘What was Charles Bronson like?’ So much is written about him, but so few ever get to meet him that it was bound to be a source of fascination. Tom had been afforded a unique opportunity to meet first-hand a man whose reputation most definitely went before him. Tom was always careful to give a measured response to the question and to approach it from his position as an actor. He has said many times that he likes Bronson and finds him funny. But he was aware that there was a fine line to tread and he wasn’t ever going to justify Bronson’s violent actions. He also admitted that he learned a lot from the experience of meeting Bronson and that the man constantly surprised him. One unexpected moment of mirth between them came when the subject of Bronson’s infamous moustache was broached. Tom recalled a conversation in which he had joked that he might not go with the moustache in the film, claiming it was ‘a bit
Village People
’ Luckily for Tom, Bronson thought this was hilarious and joined in the joke. Phew!

Although Tom was doing the best he could to understand
Bronson and had quite a lot of contact with various underworld figures who knew him well, he was conscious that he was essentially an outsider. Bad boy he may have been, but deep down he was still the same frightened middle-class boy from the suburbs who was opening himself up to an environment he didn’t really belong in. But he had a job to do and needed to be familiar with the world of Bronson in order to do him justice. ‘I’m not there to be a gangster. I’m an actor. We’re from different worlds. But there’s a code of ethics about what they do, however immoral you think it is,’ he told
Attitude
magazine.

Having recently lost weight, Tom now had to start piling it back on to be Bronson. For this actor, though, it wasn’t enough just to bulk up and look a bit more like Bronson – he needed to transform into him. After
Bronson
, he would transform again for the film
Warrior
and, comparing the two he always said that changing his body for the cage-fighting role was a lot tougher and more disciplined. To get in shape for
Bronson
, he was able to eat foods that many of us would consider indulgent: ice cream, chicken and chips were all on the menu. As well as weighing more, he also had to make sure he developed muscles in the right places and proportions and for this, as usual, he enlisted Pnut’s help. As Bronson only has a limited fitness regime within the confines of his cell, Tom and Pnut worked on a specific range of exercises that would have been possible for Bronson to do. Bronson is famous for the number of press-ups he can do in a minute, so they did a lot of those, plus dips and lifting. As Tom joked to Jonathan Ross in an interview, most of his training involved carrying Pnut up and down the stairs!

Tom had always thrown everything into his roles but with Bronson he went the extra mile. Opting to completely change himself for the part was something of a deliberate career move, too. Ultimately he wanted to be noticed for doing something remarkable and show that he could push himself as hard as he needed to for the sake of his craft. Ultimately, he wanted to establish transformational acting as a Tom Hardy calling card. ‘I think there’s a certain necessity to do that now, to establish myself as a serious actor. Nobody sits up and takes notice unless you do something extreme,’ he told the
Irish Times
.