As well as the guarantee of a performance befitting his status as one of the most highly-regarded and accomplished actors in the industry, another inevitability of hiring Tom Hardy to play any role is that you’re destined to hear him sport an accent he’s never used before.
The Academy Award nominee has gained a reputation for mixing it up vocally virtually every time he appears on-camera, whether we’re talking about the borderline-unintelligible Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, his questionable cadence in forgotten biopic Capone, or his grizzled tones in The Revenant.
Those are only three selections from a career that’s resulted in many people having no idea what Hardy actually sounds like when speaking in his native tongue, but as it turns out, even the people behind his projects are powerless to prevent him adding a brand new string to his bow.
In an interview with Variety, director Jeff Nichols confirmed that the memes have infiltrated real life, with everyone involved in The Bikeriders wondering what Hardy was going to sound like when he rocked up on set.
“It was terrifying for all of us. The financiers, the studio, they would call and they would be like, ‘Have you talked to Tom about what voice he’s going to use?’ It wasn’t until the first day of filming that I heard it. He came up to me and said, ‘What do you think?’ [He asked me] ‘It’s not too Bugs Bunny?’ You have to get used to it though. It’s a choice. And I think this is why people respond to Tom Hardy — because he’s not just phoning it in. This guy’s doing weird, cool stuff.”
The guy has indeed been doing “weird, cool stuff” for a quite a while now, making the legendary Patrick Stewart look foolish as a result after the veteran didn’t think he’d ever see or hear from his Star Trek: Nemesis colleague in this town ever again.
