heartthrob, the violent and brooding Heathcliff, in a television version of Wuthering Heights. It was where he met actress Charlotte Riley, now his wife.
Not that he minds being given these troubled roles. “There’s another component to those characters – a legitimate or illegitimate suffering in their psyche. That’s much more exciting to me,” he muses. “I’m playing people who have an obstacle to overcome and struggle to express that.”
After reaching the mainstream with Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, though, he’s finally starting to be offered a little more variety. Earlier this year
he received rapturous critical acclaim for his role in Locke – a rather atypical production about a man faced with a difficult moral decision.
decision. “In a way it was like a contemporary theatre piece,” says Hardy. The film is more-or-less entirely set on a single car journey, with the plot hinging on the phone calls Hardy’s character Ivan Locke makes as he drives. Practically a one-man show, Hardy’s intense psychological part was filmed over just eight days. Audiences were stunned at
his gripping portrayal.
The Drop is released in cinemas nationwide on November 14.
EDGY ROLES: Hardy made his name playing villains in Inception and The Dark Knight Rises.