While Tom Hardy is, without a doubt, a genuine movie star, I do wonder if his route to becoming a movie star could have been a lot different and more straight-forward. He was a beautiful guy and he’s still good-looking in a grizzled sort of way. He’s always been a great actor. He could have been a traditional leading man in a variety of huge studio productions. But for the better part of a decade, he goes back and forth from the Venom franchise to weirder, more offbeat projects. Currently, he’s promoting MobLand, which is already hugely successful on Paramount+, and that’s why he covers the summer issue of Esquire UK. Some highlights from his interview, the first long-read piece I’ve read with him in many years.

He’s dizzy: “I got dizzy today. I took a Sudafed and it’s starting to work, so I feel better but in the interviews I was sitting there, and you know when you feel not right, but you can’t tell someone you don’t feel right? Like, ‘Listen, if I pass out…’”

Bodily ailments. “I’ve had two knee surgeries now, my disc’s herniated in my back, I’ve got sciatica as well. And I have that… is it plantar fasciitis? Where did that come from? And why? Why?! And I pulled my tendon in my hip as well. It’s like, it’s all falling to bits now, and it’s not going to get better.”

He might do a stem-cell treatment: “Unless you do all the stem cells…Probably, yeah. I think if it comes down to the wire and it seems the sensible thing to do and I take advice.”

The $1.8 billion Venom franchise: “I loved playing Eddie in Venom. Juggling chainsaws… Put me on a unicycle and throw everything at me! I was just really trying to push myself as much as I could. But I had no Spider-Man! No Avengers! It’s just us. Until those bridges are crossed… That’s way beyond my control. And I’d love to do that, but that’s not even a conversation to have at my level, of just being an actor in that world…. We played in the Sony counterpoint to Disney’s Marvel panoply, of which [Marvel Studios president] Kevin Feige has a huge amount of cards, and Sony has a huge amount of cards in its own right, including Spider-Man, and then there’s just no crossover. We’d love to cross over! That’s not happened. That’s what happens, and it’s one of those things.”

Whether he has a fulfilling career: “The more I know, Miranda, the less I know. If becoming a successful actor was climbing Everest, and I got to the summit, it was a false summit. Because there was another climb!” He wheezes with laughter. “It opened up my head beyond just acting,” he says of his recent expanded responsibilities, “to problem-solving, where I probably don’t belong. At least initially, because nobody wants to hear what an actor has to say. Some people are really good at the social politics. I’m not. I just want to act, do stories. I like the money, because that’s financial security. But I don’t want a G6 or more meat in my hamburger, yellow M&Ms. The control I’m after is feeling safe in the character. ‘I can pull this off: this is a challenge, but not so much of a challenge that I won’t be able to return on investment.’ That’s different to ‘Does the director like what I did?’”

His ambition has shifted: “There’s a sort of, I guess, maturing. I’ve done a little bit in every single genre that I’ve ever wanted to do, and I’ve played on some big fields, you know? I’ve done some stinkers, I’ve done some cool things, I’ve played with some really amazing luminaries and people, I’ve had some really cool opportunities. I’m not retiring myself but I’m just saying, ‘What do you want to do with that?’ I’ve been running at something that I had to run at, to get an understanding that it’s not going anywhere. There’s only more, more, more. Of what? Stomach ulcers? Blood pressure? Your knees are going, your hair’s falling out, your teeth are wonky, you’re almost 50… Maybe it’s a self-worth thing, maybe it’s not finishing school, maybe it’s not being good enough. But all this ‘I’ll show, I’ll show’… Show who? No one cares! I know I can do it. Well then, chill out. Powerless is a key motive. How do you handle your powerlessness? And then there are the existential questions of, why am I even here? Why do I have to die alone? Haha!”

[From Esquire UK]

He has chilled out a lot in the past decade. I remember the stories about him circa Mad Max: Fury Road, and what an unprofessional sh-thead he was back then. Being given some power and having to shoulder the responsibility for some huge productions has changed him. Plus, when your body starts to fall apart, that’s humbling. I don’t have anywhere near the kind of injuries he’s sustained, but I’m also at the point where I just want to sit quietly with an ice pack on whatever hurts. He’s realized that no matter his successes, there’s always more, more to prove, more power to attain, more more more. And his body just HURTS. And he’s tired and he’s zonked out on Sudafed. Anyway, I kind of loved this interview.

Cover courtesy of Esquire UK, additional pics courtesy of Avalon Red.