Legend: A loving ranking of Tom Hardy’s most ludicrous performances
As well as revealing the monster in action, the trailer for Ruben Fleischer’s Venom also reveals another in a long line of insane performances by Tom Hardy. The trailer for last year’s Marvel movie about one of its most beloved, enigmatic, and complex characters shows poor investigative reporter Eddie Brock struggling to comprehend some troubling changes.
Hardy starred alongside a spectacular cast including Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler), Woody Harrelson (Zombieland), and Jenny Slate (Obvious Child). Playing an everyday guy with an inner monster is something Hardy does extremely well. Watch the trailer and then check out our ranking of the 14 craziest performances from Hardy ever.
14. Bob: The Drop (2014)
The least crazy role of Hardy’s career involves him basically looking adorable as he protects a poor neglected puppy called Rocco. There’s some other plot details to it involving James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), the mob, and Noomi Rapace (but really it’s all about Hardy snuggling a tiny a dog).
13. Tuck: This Means War (2012)
We’re not sure why it’s become increasingly difficult to comprehend Hardy being in this action-packed romantic comedy alongside Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies) and Chris Pine (Wonder Woman), but we’re honestly still baffled by it. Sure, the man is a stud, but a romantic lead? Nah.
12. Eames: Inception (2010)
Though Christopher Nolan’s dream-heist movie is definitely an odd one, Hardy’s performance alongside stars like Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Looper) is far more subdued and classy than we’ve come to expect from him.
11. Forrest Bondurant: Lawless (2012)
Infamously the movie that resulted in Hardy in a real-life bustup with co-star Shia LaBeouf (Transformers), the actor’s off-screen exploits may have been crazier than his actual performance in John Hillcoat’s bootlegging drama.
10. Ivan Locke: Locke (2013)
A movie in which Hardy is the only real character shown on screen is basically our idea of heaven. Playing a man facing a series of events that threaten his family, job, and life, Hardy has nothing but a series of tense phone conversations to act against while driving a car. Yet he’s utterly compelling as he does so.
9. John Fitzgerald: The Revenant (2015)
Hardy plays a very bad man with a very thick accent, a very big beard, and a very dirty face. Strangely, we still wouldn’t kick him out of bed.
8. Tommy Conlon: Warrior (2011)
Gavin O’Connor’s MMA movie offered some devastating commentary about family dynamics, broken homes, and masculinity. It also gave us Hardy at peak-beefcake with a neck wider than the average movie screen.
7. Alfie Solomons: Peaky Blinders (2014 – 2017)
Hardy was deranged and unpredictable as the Jewish gangster leader, giving audiences a performance full of tension and insane little quirks.
6. Shinzon: Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Playing a clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), one of Hardy’s earliest roles is also by far his weirdest. From the outfit to his apoplectic lisp, this is a mad one.
5. James Keziah Delaney: Taboo (2017 – 2018)
You know a Hardy performance has reached new heights of insanity when someone can make a lengthy supercut of all the times he grunts during it.
4. Max Rockatansky: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
His accent? Crazy. The muzzle he wears for most of the movie? Ludicrous. His action sequences? Jaw dropping. George Miller’s fourth instalment of his Mad Max franchise was as mad as they come.
3. Bane: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
From one mask to another, Hardy was near enough incomprehensible as the burly anarchist villain (with fantastic taste in coats). When he was squaring up to the equally as incomprehensible Batman (Christian Bale), it was like watching two shy kids mumble threats at each other.
2. Reggie Kray / Ron Kray: Legend (2015)
Hardy plays Britain’s most notorious set of psychotic gangster identical twins and gives us the unnerving dual performance we never knew we needed. There’s even a scene in which he basically physically attacks himself! It’s pure poetry.
1. Charles Bronson: Bronson (2008)
From one set of notorious British criminals to another, Hardy’s theatrical depiction of the most savage man in the English penal system in Nicolas Winding Refn’s stylistic biopic was clownish & ghoulish and remains one of his best.
