So far this year has been a mixed bag for Tom Hardy with incredibly positive reviews for Mad Max: Fury Road matched by some of the worst of his career for Child 44. Later this year he'll star as infamous twin gangsters Ronald and Reggie Kray in Brian Helgeland's Legend, and it sounds like the role forced Hardy to push himself in challenging new ways...
Helgeland: "My initial instinct was to get two guys to play the brothers. Reggie’s the lead. I knew I had to cast Reggie first whether same actor or not… Tom was on the top of the list for Reggie....He said, “I’m in. I want to play Reggie but I’ll only do it if I can play Ron also.” Right on the spot I said, “That’s a deal.” And we were off and running from there trying to figure out how to do it."
"He went, from hour to hour, he would be one or the other. There were exceptions, but he usually Reggie during the first part of the day because it was the bigger part. Then many days Ron didn’t work at all. But if it was the two of them, Tom and I would rehearse in the morning and he’d read both parts and we’d work out blocking. He’d record Ron’s side of the dialogue, give it to sound guy who’d cut it together in a way he could fit his Reggie dialogue in between his Ron dialogue. Then he’d go off to hair and makeup and come back. He would wear an earpiece that no one could see. We would play Ron in his ear. His stunt man was his body double for Reggie and Ron so he could have someone in front of him to look at. Then we’d play back Reggie’s recording in his ear when he was playing Ron."
The work Hardy put into it seems to be paying off judging by the latest trailer, in which we see two very different sides to the actor. Helgeland also notes that the film is more about Reggie (hence the singular title Legend), the more sober of the siblings, as he tries to control his brother Ron's psychotic tendencies. Also starring Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, and Taron Egerton, Legend opens on October 22nd. [Yahoo]
