Tom Hardy (3 page)

Despite such a multitude of distractions in his personal life, Tom did in fact return to drama school in order to complete his second year. True, he had been thrown out at the end of year one, but this was not an uncommon occurrence. During the second year, though, things changed for Tom in quite a major way, thanks to a casting director called Gary Davy.

The previous year, Davy had seen a photo of Tom in
Male Vogue
, from his modelling days. He had spotted something in Tom’s look that he felt would be right for the lead role in a forthcoming film he was casting. At the time, however, Tom was in the throes of his degree course and turned down the role in order to continue with his studies. A sensible move,
but the young actor must have made quite an impression on Davy and, the following year, Davy contacted him again. This time, he was working as the casting director on an HBO miniseries with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks at the helm. He wanted to cast Tom in the show and, this time, the offer was too tempting to refuse. Serendipity, and of course raw talent, had propelled Tom straight from drama school into the world of high-profile, big-budget television drama.
Band of Brothers
was to prove both a critical and ratings success and is a project any actor would be proud to have been involved in, however large or small their role.

In a prescient comment made to
The Stage
in 2004, Davy reflected on why he pinpointed Tom for the role: ‘From the moment I met him, I knew how important he was going to be. I simply knew he was going to be a star.’

How right Davy has proved to be. In recent months, with Tom being cast in bigger roles and teetering on the cusp of breaking into Hollywood, it is obvious that he is set to be one of the most prolific actors of his generation. While continuing to gain critical acclaim, he is also now starting to be something of a box-office draw – if his name is attached to a film, cinema-goers are starting to sit up and take notice. Back then, however, it was the expert eye of a professional who had the foresight to see the natural, raw talent which could, if harnessed correctly, go on to create a superstar.

The route to success is seldom easy and Tom was to encounter some major setbacks on his way. To all intents and purposes, he was making inroads into acting and even finding himself attached to worthy projects – to be plucked from drama school and land a role in a major television series is
quite a rarity. On the surface, he was throwing himself into a new career; just below, however, still lurked his addictions and insecurities. It would not take long for the balance to shift and for the dark to eclipse the light.

T
he first ever glimpse of Tom Hardy on screen is one that still brings delight to his legions of female fans should they choose to seek it out on YouTube or pause it on their DVD player. His first appearance in
Band of Brothers
is in a rather unexpected bedroom scene in which his character, Private John Janovec, gets to know a member of the local female population in Sturzelberg, Germany during the final months of World War II. Blink and you might miss it, but eagle-eyed devotees of the Hardy physique are even treated to a brief glimpse of the actor’s backside.

Tom’s role in the ensemble drama was not a major one and he only appeared in the final two episodes of the 10-part series. However great or small a part, it was the most amazing start for an actor who hadn’t even completed his training. To be cast in a Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks television production is a dream come true for any actor – and for one just starting out, it was the luckiest of breaks.

Band of Brothers
is one of the most revered and respected television miniseries ever broadcast. Based on the best-selling book by World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose, it follows the journey of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, and charts their experiences from the start of their training in Georgia, parachuting into Normandy on D-Day, taking part in Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, the discovery of one of the concentration camps at Dachau, through to the capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest and the end of the war.

At the time it was made, the series broke the record for the most expensive television production, costing $120 million to put together. Hanks and Spielberg, fresh from the success of the movie
Saving Private Ryan
(which Spielberg had directed and in which Hanks had starred), were originally intending to make separate World War II dramas but eventually decided to collaborate rather than compete and began work on Hanks’ project of the adaptation of
Band of Brothers
. They had drawn on Stephen E Ambrose’s wealth of knowledge of the period for
Saving Private Ryan
and, as well as providing the original material for
Band of Brothers
, he was also enlisted as Executive Producer on the show.

Hanks and Spielberg were actively involved in the casting of the actors who would make up the 50 soldiers whose stories would be followed through the series. It was critical for them to find exactly the right actors to play each man for two reasons: firstly, the men needed to bond as a unit, and secondly, each actor needed to be able to do justice to the experience of the real veteran they were portraying.

One key aspect of casting was the desire to use little-known
actors to fill the roles of the men of Easy Company, a decision which helped to give the show the all-important feeling of an ensemble piece. It also meant that audiences wouldn’t have preconceived opinions of the actors playing the men of Easy Company. One notable exception to this was the casting of
Friends
star David Schwimmer as Captain Sobel.

It is well documented that, during casting, Spielberg was in charge behind the camera and Tom Hanks staged the acting, keeping his eye on actors who seemed to bond and who appeared appropriate for particular roles. Apparently, though, when casting the leading roles of Major Dick Winters and Captain Lewis Nixon, they knew they had found their men almost as soon as they entered the room. Tom Hanks had met and spent time with Dick Winters and knew he needed a certain kind of actor to do justice to such an outstanding soldier and leader: the role went to up-and-coming English actor, Damian Lewis. The part of Lewis Nixon went to American actor Ron Livingston. As it turned out, the series proved to be a springboard for a number of lesser-known young British actors who have since gone on to become stars in their own right: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Simon Pegg, Marc Warren and, of course, Tom Hardy, to name just a few.

All of the actors, including Tom, appreciated that they were portraying real people and that they had a duty to the men and their families to make sure they gave the best and most accurate performances they possibly could. Speaking to
IGN Movies
, Tom reflected on his approach to the part: ‘I was in two episodes and had 12 lines. That was the sum total of the work I had to do. But nonetheless, I would work just as hard
trying to portray someone whose relatives are still around. Obviously, nobody wants to go out there and say, “This is my big moment”. And I’m playing John Janovec, who is dead. He died for freedom. So, yes, you have to approach that.’

The bond between the men who fought side by side in Easy Company was an extraordinary and unique one and it was vital that the relationships between them were understood and felt by the actors in the ensemble. To achieve the feeling of unity, the final group of 50 actors who constituted the men of the company were sent on an intensive 10-day bootcamp under the command of Captain Dale Dye, who was also the military adviser on the series. They endured 18-hour days and military drills and what had started as a group of actors transformed into something else – it gradually became a functioning unit.

The plethora of young Brits cast in the American drama might have had something to do with the location for filming. The series was made at the Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire in the South East of England. Now no longer in existence, the lot was then over 1,000 acres in size and housed disused hangars that proved ideal spaces for building sets. The producers were already familiar with the aerodrome, as parts of
Saving Private Ryan
had been filmed there. At the time, Tom Hanks said: ‘England is a wonderful place to make films, and as the experience of making
Saving Private Ryan
made clear to us all, it is an ideal place to make this ambitious miniseries.’

Shooting took place in 2000 and lasted eight months. Each episode of the series had a different director at its helm, with Hanks himself directing Episode Three,
Crossroads
. Despite
the array of directors, great care was taken to ensure that there was continuity in character and style for the duration of the ten episodes.

For Tom Hardy, to be plucked from drama school and plunged right into the middle of such an epic production was at once breathtakingly exciting and incredibly daunting. As well as this being his debut on screen, Tom had the added pressure of knowing that he had to film his first bedroom scene – a nerve-wracking experience even for a seasoned actor, let alone a rookie. ‘Everything was happening fast and it felt wonderful,’ he said to the
Evening Standard
in 2006. ‘I had never acted for the camera. It’s a huge set, it’s Tom Hanks, it’s Steven Spielberg, and no expense spared. I felt very exposed, isolated and vulnerable. I had to do my first sex scenes, which were terrifying. But at the time I thought I should never ask for help, and I kept thinking, “If I cock up, I’ll never work again”.’

Speaking about the awkwardness around his opening scenes, Tom revealed to
Esquire
magazine: ‘I was terrified! It wasn’t half as closed a set as I thought it was gonna be. They kept saying they could see my pants, so I wound up with a
flesh-coloured
pouch gaffer-taped over me balls! Took a load of hair out when I ripped it of after. Band of Brazilians, more like!’

The soldier whom Tom was portraying, Private John Janovec first appears in Episode Nine,
Why We Fight
. There are so many intensely emotional moments in
Band of Brothers
, but this particular episode contains one of the most poignant scenes of the series. Easy Company by this time (1945) is in Germany during the last days of the war. The statement that forms the title of this episode is one pondered
amongst the soldiers who begin to ask themselves if the sacrifices they have made have been worth it. The question is answered for them when they discover a concentration camp that formed part of the Dachau complex and come face to face with the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

Episode 10,
Points
, the final episode of the series, centres around Easy Company entering Berchtesgaden to take Hitler’s Bavarian mountaintop retreat, the Eagle’s Nest. By this time, the war was all but over and the men were left with time on their hands and were anxious to get home. Before his turn comes to return to the USA, Private Janovec is involved in a road accident, suffers a fractured skull and subsequently dies. His conversation with a fellow soldier, Webster, just before the accident is of how many ‘points’ he has accrued on his service record and how soon he might be able to go home. It was a significant scene to include in the drama and one which demonstrates another heartbreaking injustice of war: in this instance that, even when the men were no longer in combat, there were still casualties.

The miniseries was first aired in the United States in September 2001, shortly before the attacks on the World Trade Center. Its debut in the UK followed in October. While audiences and critics, particularly in the UK, marvelled at the expense that had gone into making the show, most agreed that it was a remarkable achievement. Of course, there was the inevitable criticism from British audiences that the show was another example of Americans giving a biased depiction of events during World War II – but to offer this up as criticism is to rather miss the point of what was at the heart of the series. It succeeded in what it set out to do, which was
to offer a faithful and compelling portrayal of what this particular group of men experienced when they went to war. Those men who had fought with Easy Company and were still alive when the series premiered confirmed that the show was an authentic representation of what they had been through.

With his first small-screen outing under his belt, Tom was hungry for more work. Luckily for him, the next job in his diary was a part in a Ridley Scott movie – the young actor really was on a roll. Once again, Tom would be playing an American soldier, but this time he would be recreating a more modern chapter of US military history.

Although set almost 50 years and thousands of miles apart, there are common threads running through
Band of Brothers
and
Black Hawk Down
. The subject matter of both is drawn from actual historical events and uses the recollections of the people who participated in those events. They also share similar themes such as comradeship, loss, a sense of belonging and a desire to be the very best at what you do.

Black Hawk Down
tells the true story of a battle between US forces and Somali militia. In 1993, Somalia was a country torn apart by warring factions. Relief was not getting through to starving civilians, with much of it being hijacked by warlords. General Mohammed Ali Farrah Aidid was widely considered to be the worst of the warlords and challenged the presence of the UN and US troops in Somalia, even specifically targeting American troops. A previous attempt by US forces to capture Aidid in a safe house in Mogadishu had failed and, in October 1993, a task force was deployed to capture some of Aidid’s key men. The mission went
catastrophically wrong and, during its course, two Black Hawk helicopters were brought down by Somali RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and went crashing into enemy territory. Elite US Ranger and Delta regiments were then engaged in a 15-hour effort to rescue their own men. During the course of the mission, 18 US soldiers lost their lives.
Black Hawk Down
recalls the events of the disastrous mission and the men who were involved.

The film was a major production, boasting big names and a big budget to match: it was produced by Hollywood
big-shot
Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Ridley Scott. An accomplished director held in high regard, Scott was clear on what he wanted the film’s focus to be – it was to cover the insertion of the troops into Mogadishu, their exit and what they felt afterwards. The narrative was kept simple: no back stories were given for the soldiers, nor did they talk about their personal lives. It was a film that dealt purely with the horror of the events that took place and the actions of the men who were involved.

Just as authenticity had been paramount for
Band of Brothers
, so it was for
Black Hawk Down
. Just as the
Band of Brothers
actors had attended bootcamp, so the actors who were to play the soldiers in
Black Hawk Down
were required to attend ‘Ranger Orientation’ in order to experience the kind of training that real soldiers have to undertake. They also needed to understand the ethos of the Rangers: the respect they have for authority and the bond they have with their fellow soldiers. As Eric Bana’s character Hoot puts it in the film: ‘It’s about the men next to you. That’s it. That’s all it is.’

The actors weren’t spared at all when they turned up for
bootcamp: the first thing they had to endure was having their hair shaved off. Once they had been made to look like soldiers, they then underwent days of gruelling combat and movement training, as well as gun skills so that they gave the impression of being real soldiers on screen.

Just as he had been when making
Band of Brothers
, Tom was acutely aware that he was representing a real soldier, Lance Twombly, and that he had a responsibility to that man when it came to portraying him in the movie. ‘Lance Twombly, who is still alive, he still lives with the demons. There are these people who have fought and will fight and will die. It’s a responsibility if you’re going to go in there and play a character like that, and the pressure is enormous.’

A desire for realism fell not only to the actors but also to the director. He was all too aware that he was dealing with relatively recent events and that he couldn’t take liberties with accuracy. ‘When it’s so recent and vivid, you can’t diddle around with it, you can’t romanticise it,’ Scott expressed to the
Guardian
in 2002. His desire to adhere to the truth also manifested itself in his attention to detail. He was determined to use real Black Hawk helicopters in his film, as to have anything else would have compromised authenticity. Only the US government have Black Hawks and in order to gain permission to borrow their ‘birds’, protracted negotiations about how the military were represented in the film had to be undertaken with the Pentagon. It was only at the eleventh hour that Scott found out he had permission to use the helicopters (and in fact had to rearrange the shooting schedule to accommodate this delay).