Actor stirs ‘new Marlon Brando ’buzz

LOS ANGELES

HARDY. Cast as the new Mad Max. RUBEN V. NEPALES

—He was one of the reasons to see Chris Nolan’s “Inception.” His performances, including in the new film “Warrior,” often prod critics to bring up Marlon Brando. Nolan has cast him again, this time in the new “Dark Knight” movie. And last, but certainly not the least, he is the new Mad Max in director George Miller’s fourth film in the series.

“Yes, I believe it is a go,” Tom Hardy confirmed “Mad Max 4: Fury Road” in a recent chat. “I think it’s due to start in April next year.”

“Warrior,” Gavin O’Connor’s powerful drama, stars Tom and Joel Edgerton as estranged brothers who end up fighting each other in a mixed martial arts championship bout. The two actors and Nick Nolte, who plays their ex-alcoholic dad, are brilliant. Not a few glowing reviews praised Tom as Brando-esque.

When we asked Tom about the comparison to the late, great actor, he replied, “You’re going to hate me. I’ve never watched ‘On the Waterfront.’  I’ve seen ‘Apocalypse Now.’ I thought he was wonderful in that. I feel a bit embarrassed when I’m compared to him. Marlon Brando is Marlon Brando. It’s a tremendous honor to be compared to him. But I don’t think I’m very good at what I do. I want to work harder at it.”

The son of a Cambridge-educated writer and an actress, Tom struggled through booze and drug problems, spent nights in jails for disorderly conduct, even at one point faced charges for stealing a car and gun possession. He was quoted as saying that the lowest point was when he woke up one time on a Soho street “with a crack pipe, covered in blood and vomit.”

After rehab, Tom returned to acting in theater, TV and film, racking up an Olivier Award nomination in the process. His big breaks include being cast in the TV World War II drama, “Band of Brothers,” a role in Guy Ritchie’s “RocknRolla” and his portrayal of British convict Charles Bronson in “Bronson,” which netted him a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor.

But audiences all over the world first took notice of Tom as an in-dream shape shifter in Nolan’s “Inception.” “There’s an awful lot I owe to Chris Nolan,” Tom acknowledged the filmmaker, who cast him as the chemically enhanced Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises.” “Chris put me on a massive platform and trusted in me twice. Anything that he asks me to do, artistically speaking, I’d be there in a heartbeat.”

Ballroom dancing

Bulking up and down as needed for his roles, Tom said he has to be in muscled shape again for the “Mad Max” reboot.

He came to our chat looking like his character in “Warrior”—shaved head, black hoodie sweater and baggy shorts. “I feel a bit brutish and a bit ugly. My fiancée (actress Charlotte Riley) is small and petite. She hit me the other night while we were sleeping. I was snoring so bad. She hit me. I said, ‘Is it cuddle time?’”

Asked how he, Joel and Gavin developed the brother protagonists’ different styles of fighting on the ring, Tom answered, “Joe’s character is more methodical and strategic, a chess-player-type fighter. Mine is dominant and willful.

“We wanted my character to look a little bit like the young Mike Tyson,” Tom continued. “He is very willful and beautiful. Like the back end of a shark, when he would uppercut. That kind of animalistic power would be great to be able to get. But only in my imagination. Mike does it for real.”

Tom denied reports that he and Shia LaBeouf fought in real life while making “The Wettest County in the World,” a film about the true story of a moonshine gang operation during Prohibition in the US.

“Nothing really happened,” he said of the widely reported clashes. “We were just playing around, to be honest. We used to all slap each other. Because we’re three brothers (Jason Clarke plays the third sibling), a sort of moonshine family. We’re quite an aggressive family. Shia does an amazing performance. He did this incredible transformation from a gentle young man into a very rough, heavy-handed individual. I’m looking forward to seeing his work in the film.”

Tom, along with Shia and Ryan Gosling, are shaping up to be this generation’s crop of top actors. He has two other promising films coming up: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (with Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and John Hurt) and “This Means War” (with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine).

Tom said, “I am very grateful to my family, friends, agents, my son (Louis Thomas, 3, whose mother is Rachael Speed, an ex-girlfriend), every director and writer who have worked with me along the way.  I’m responsible to be the best that I can be in order to pay them back for their generosity.”

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