By Enrique Huili | New York City
Today in the cinematic world it’s hard to notice up coming talented actors, since there are just so many actors. And don’t get me wrong a lot of them deserve it. But people hold the bar high because of nostalgic intellectuals, who proclaim that, “film is dead, art is dead, I’m dead.” But it is a bit harder now to find young up coming actors because everyone believes that if they have a camera in their hands they are directors, or if you have somewhat of a fan base you can be an actor too. Sorry Shaq, though Kazaam makes me laugh when I’m intoxicated and put my brain into a jaw of moonshine, it still should have never happened. One of the more obvious up coming actors is Ryan Gosling. The man seems like he can do anything and woo any girl. But why talk about him when he has his own website that the title starts off with “Fuck Yeah” and has every single 16 year-old girl in the world confessing that they want to eat his bones. I’d like to bring an actor up who is quite famous already; he was in one of the most grossing ‘12 blockbuster films, Tom Hardy.
Most people now know who Tom Hardy is. He is a British actor, born in Hammersmith, London, England. His notable films include: Star Trek: Nemesis, RocknRolla, Bronson, Warrior, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, This Means War, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Lawless. As a young man he battled with alcoholism and drugs, and now has been sober for quite a while. He’s admitted on interviews that he was a well brought up child and loved very much, but somehow headed up taking a dark path in his youth. Through his tribulations he made it to the acting scene… and thank God! Tom Hardy has many talents, from being able to change his body for whatever the role requires, to having one of the biggest expressive eyes amongst actors today.
I first caught my Hardy fever when I saw Inception. It was a bore and a struggle to get through that movie, but every time he appeared on screen I couldn’t stop thinking, “who is this guy.” With his tiny petty fights he had with Joseph Gordon-Levitt made the film’s most interesting scenes. Then comes along Nicolas Winding Refn, director of Bronson. Where Tom Hardy portrays Charles Bronson; from this film you can see the change he did to his body by adding 42 pounds on and doing 2500 push-ups a day (a fact that can never be truly proven, but I’m a romantic). The sensitivity he plays as Bronson makes you contemplate and help him strategize his diabolical plans. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy he’s part of a group of men who work for a British secret services. They all seem uptight and have composure, and their movements seem to be plan ahead by each step, except for Tom Hardy’s character -he plays Ricki Tarr a young informant on a mission outside of the UK-. In the film he’s emotionally open and available amongst his peers, unpredictable, and there’s a sense of joy to him.
I didn’t see This Means War for obvious reasons, but I did see a small clip where Tom Hardy confronts Chris Pine right before their showdown, and I saw his eyes, his eyes had such intensity that for a moment I can only guess that Chris Pine might have been fearful for his safety in that scene. Though it’s a corny statement, I urge to watch the trailer and find that scene in the restaurant. It seems like no matter what script it is, Tom Hardy brings everything he’s got into it. In Warrior his performance can only be described in one word, “beautiful”. He plays a young ex-marine who enters a UFC tournament and ends up facing his brother in the finals. In the film he’s a rejected child ever since their mother died, he comes back to his father in order for him to receive training for the tournament. Yet continues through the entire film to establish that there is no father-son relationship. In the scenes where he attacks his father (because his father is trying to reconcile their relationship), he’s screaming secretly, at the same time, that he wishes he was never rejected and always been loved by him, but never will accept forgiveness, and wants nothing but a hug from him, creating a contradiction all at the same time; that you can’t help but break down for him.
A much younger Tom HardyIn The Dark Knight Rises he plays the menacing Bane. Which at times it’s almost impossible to understand what he’s saying, but you get cheer joy out of his choice of voice for the character. But in this film, since he is wearing a mask at all times his expressions are limited. This is where his eyes take over his performance. Through his eyes you can see the hatred and desire for Gotham to burn. So when it comes to scenes where you can’t understand what he’s saying, it doesn’t matter because his eyes are chocking you. Now we come to Lawless, his most feminine and most badass character yet. In Lawless he plays Forrest Bondurant, a bootlegger, a gangster, and a brother/mother to his two youngest siblings. In an interview in GQ he talked about his character, “It wasn’t in the script. The only way you can make him a likeable gangster is by finding his femininity. He’s a mother [to his brothers]. I had a big fuckload of batteries in the pockets, so it hung down. I looked like your granddad, but I had a swagger. A cardigan with a swagger, right? Can you imagine getting knocked the fuck out by a guy in a cardigan?”
Tom Hardy can easily be one of the greatest actors of our generation.Who knows.
I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the greatest.
“It is a common and repulsive slur to say of a man that he is feminine, that he thinks or acts like a woman. I am proud to say that I am feminine; that I try to think like a woman. I have never approached a character as a man, but as a curious, caring person–which in my history is a woman. I approach things as if I were my mother, sometimes my sister, always as if I were Stella Adler. Or as if Stella were next to me, hectoring, hugging, correcting. Only after I have analyzed a character–or a person or a situation–through my metaphorical female eyes–do I approach it as the physical man that I am. Everything that is important to the thinking, caring race derives from women. I derive from women. At the end of his ministrations, even God knew something greater was needed. I will certainly die trying to better myself through women, and trying to treat them with the love and respect they deserve.” – Marlon Brando
