The Bloke – aka Tom Hardy – did a Skype interview with Vulture/New York magazine. It’s a decent piece, but that’s probably because I enjoy The Bloke. If I’m being honest, the piece is sort of overwritten, and it takes forever to get to some of the more interesting quotes from Hardy. He chatted with Vulture to promote Legend, but he ends up chatting about a lot of different things, like The Revenant, how much he dislikes most directors, and how he doesn’t mind watching himself on film. Some highlights:

Taking on challenging roles: “Eventually, something will kill me. Of course it will. Eventually, I’ll be rubbish. But if I don’t take on something that I feel will eat me alive, I don’t think I’d have the compulsion to work my ass off.”

He’ll watch his films at the premiere: “It’s good to keep an eye on something you’ve put into the world.” When it’s mentioned that most actors don’t watch themselves, he says, “Well, either they’re in a sh-t film or they’re not as involved in the process as much as they ought to be and could be. I feel like I’m duty bound to stand by it. And I care about it.”

He even loves to watch his playbacks: “Sometimes a filmmaker might not want to tell you what he’s doing. He might not want to let you watch his dailies. And you go, ‘Oh, f–k it.’ Because then you have to do what they call ‘trust.’ Now why the f–k would I do that?”

His dislike of “auteur” directors: “A writer comes with nothing and he writes something down and there’s a story. Then a bunch of actors come along, and people can watch that. Then a third person comes along and says, ‘I really love what you guys are doing. And if you’d just do it the way I see it, we’d really be onto something.’ And there’s part of me that goes: ‘Why are you here?’ A director who hasn’t written something, and they say, ‘Trust me.’ And I’m like, ‘With what, mate?’ ”

His reputation for being difficult: “Knowing what the best idea is, having an open mind, and having the conviction that something’s going the wrong way — you f–king speak up, no matter how bad the reaction is from people who don’t want to hear it. And you say, ‘This has to change, and I’m really sorry it’s going to f–k you all off, but we haven’t nailed it.’ They don’t like to hear that. So you’re difficult… Everyone wants to be excellent. And if you’re striving for that excellence, and it’s expected from me, then I expect that from you.”

On the neverending shoot for The Revenant: “Yeah, I was never not going to make it out of that movie alive, mate. But it was f–king epic. Alejandro picked up from Birdman and decided to take everything he did in that and make it work in the great outdoors, in natural light, in minus-20 degrees Celsius…It was f–king hard. I think [Alejandro] bit down hard on something that bit him back. And he bit back as well. And it continued to be a beast that was biting him, and he was biting it, and we all bit down.”

[From Vulture]

I believe that Hardy and Alejandro González Iñárritu probably did have some epic fights, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were some major breakdowns in communication/respect/whatever. And I find it interesting that Hardy still has to answer questions about his “difficult” reputation, yet everyone wants to work with him. If an actress had a similiarly difficult profile, would the reaction be the same?

Photos courtesy of WENN.