Tom Hardy: I'm 'Difficult' but 'Not Unreasonable'
Here's a great way to get an actor to open up: invite him to paint pottery. That's exactly what went down during British Esquire's interview with actor Tom Hardy, which appears in the magazine's May issue. And open up he did! The bearded 37-year-old actor disclosed that yeah, he knows he's tough to work with.
“I have a reputation for being difficult. And I am. I am actually," the Mad Max: Fury Road star admitted while making a mug for his wife, actress Charlotte Riley. "But I'm not unreasonable. It used to be that if somebody hurt me, I’d lash out a bit in order to get them to stop."
"It ultimately comes from fear," he confessed to the magazine. "If I cause enough of a mess, then people will never ask me again to do something I don't want to do. But that sort of backfires after a while so you don't want to do that. You grow up. And it's like, you know, you’ve got to watch how you behave. Because I've got the 'he's volatile' thing."
He also has achieved a certain level of fame, but says he has no plans to let that change the way he lives his life. "If I want to go down with my little boy [Louis, who will turn 7 next month] to Crock A Doodle and paint ceramics, I'm doing that. And nothing’s going to stop me. Anything else that gets in the way of [mine and my family's life] goes first. I don't say that lightly. Because I'm financially secure enough to say that, within my means," he added.
"I’m not a multi-multi-millionaire; I haven’t got enough money to survive my whole life and look after my friends and family," he clarified, before rambling on, "but I would rather be able to go to Crock A Doodle, and be with my dogs, and walk down the street, and people know me and say hello. That’s great, it’s like being a local in an old-fashioned sitcom, Cheers or whatever, but in real life. You know me? Great. That's cool. Totally. Brilliant. Love it. At least I know I'm not alone in the world."
It sounds like underneath that rough exterior is a sensitive, introspective kinda guy who really cares about his family. After all, he does paint pottery — he can't be that tough.
