Tom Hardy’s "The Dark Knight Risen"
His mesmerising performance as bad guy Bane in the new Batman flick follows a string of box office hits including Inception and Warrior.
But it has been a difficult road to Hollywood superstardom for the 34-year-old British actor.
He admits going off the rails as a teen, and in 2003 he collapsed after a crack binge and entered rehab.
With his heavily tattooed body and streetwise swagger you’d be forgiven for thinking Tom was born on the wrong side of the tracks.
Yet he grew up in smart East Sheen, south-west London — the only child of Cambridge-educated writer Edward “Chips” Hardy and mum Anne, an artist.
He said: “I always had a sense of shame about being privileged. It’s taken me a long time to realise it’s OK to be from Sheen, it’s OK to be a public schoolboy. It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at.
“I grew up around people carriers and cardigans and the deer in Richmond Park, but behind those Laura Ashley curtains there are a lot of demons.
“East Sheen is a middle-class area but there’s trouble if you want it.”
And trouble was what Tom found — he was expelled from Reed’s public school in Surrey for stealing, arrested for joyriding in a stolen Mercedes while in possession of a gun when he was 15 — the Crown Prosecution Service didn’t press charges — and became an alcoholic and drug addict soon afterwards.
He said: “I was a very adrenal kid. I ran on my feelings — and there was a lot of fear.
“When I found drinking at 13 — a bit of beer — I felt calm. I thought this must be how everyone else feels, and I wanted more of it.
“But then I became a drunk, a f***ing drunk, man!”
As well as diving into drink and drugs, he also experimented with his sexuality.
When asked if he had ever had sex with a man, he replied: “Of course I have. I’m an actor, for f***’s sake.
“I’ve played with everything and everyone. I love the form and the physicality. But now that I’m in my 30s it doesn’t do it for me.
“I’m done experimenting but there’s plenty of stuff in a relationship with another man, especially gay men, that I need in my life.
“A lot of gay men get my thing for shoes. I have definite feminine qualities.”
At 21 Tom entered and won The Big Breakfast’s Find Me A Supermodel competition on TV and briefly had a modelling contract.
But it took a long time for him to feel comfortable with his good looks. He said: “If anything, it was an impediment being a pretty boy. When I was a kid people thought I was a girl. But I wanted to be strong, to be a man.
“My vulnerabilities were permanently on show when I was young. I had no skin as a kid. Now I’m covered in tattoos.”
He was expelled from Richmond College for the Performing Arts, then studied method acting at the Drama Centre in central London.
He cut his studies short when he landed a role in the 2001 TV miniseries Band Of Brothers, followed by parts in Hollywood films Black Hawk Down and Star Trek: Nemesis. However the latter was a flop and in 2003 he collapsed after a crack binge.
Then, the following year, his drinking and drug-taking contributed to the end of his five-year marriage to Sarah Ward.
Tom said: “I went entirely off the rails and I’m lucky I didn’t have some terrible accident or end up in prison or dead, because that’s where I was going.
“Now I know my beast and I know how to manage it. It’s like living with a 400lb orangutan that wants to kill me. It’s much more powerful than me, doesn’t speak the same language and it runs around the darkness of my soul.”
With his parents’ help, Tom checked into rehab and finally cleaned up his act. He then landed a number of television and film roles and founded his own repertory company, Shotgun Theatre.
He has also had a flourishing stage career, winning an Evening Standard Best Newcomer award in 2003 for his role in the play In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, and later taking the lead role in Restoration comedy The Man Of Mode at the National Theatre.
In 2008 he starred in the Guy Richie crime flick RocknRolla — and it was a busy time in his personal life too, as he became a dad to son Louis with then girlfriend Rachael Speed.
He now shares custody of four-year-old Louis with Rachael and is determined to make sure he is a hands-on dad.
He said: “It’s no longer about just you. I may be working away a lot but I’m working damned hard to make sure my boy is getting everything he needs.
“He lives mostly with his mum and I see him when I can.” Tom fell for his fiancée, actress Charlotte Riley, on the set of the 2009 ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights. He described himself as being a “very lucky boy” but the engagement could prove a long one.
In March he said: “You’d have to ask Charlotte when we’re getting married.
“She’s a difficult woman to pin down as she’s always so busy with work.”
But Tom has been pretty busy too — following in the footsteps of Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson as a Batman baddie has done wonders for his career. He said: “Doing Batman has been massive. My career was like a paddling pool.
“Bane has gone and thrown a grenade into it. It’s that kind of change. At times I have felt nervous about the role. It’s taken me 30 years to get here.
“When I got offered the part I was nervous because of the hype. It is huge. My friends have told me that my life will change after the film but I have tried to remain focused and remain British.”
Indeed, he has no plans to leave the UK. He said: “I’m not going anywhere because my little boy’s here. The bottom line is that I’m someone’s dad, first and foremost, and that’s very grounding.”
TheSun.co.uk
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