Peaky Blinders’ Tom Hardy admits he had a life everyone dreams of, yet he messed up everything after succumbing to the influence of crime and drugs. The actor went into rehab in 2003 at a very young age and only got out of the dark abyss when he was 25.
Hardy’s journey to sobriety happened after he realized that he could lose everything he worked for if he won’t stop consuming alcohol. The battle was a difficult one, and the underlying reasons for his indulgence were rooted in his childhood.
Tom Hardy Shares Tragic Past Involving Alcohol And Drugs
Speaking with Mirror UK, Peaky Blinders’ alumnus Tom Hardy shared his grueling experience fighting his addiction:
“If I had four pints of lager and half a bottle of vodka I could turn this room into an absolute f**king nightmare in about three minutes. I could destroy everything in my life I have worked so hard for. It’s the suburbs, the life is so privileged and peaceful and so bloody dull, it gives you the instinctive desire to want to f**k everything up.”
Hardy blamed his “privileged and peaceful” childhood in South West London for his desire to shake things up. By doing so, he admitted putting himself in danger:
“I got arrested at 15 for joyriding in a stolen Mercedes. And for good measure, there was a gun in the car. I just had to endanger myself – it was a kind of self-harming.”
The 45-year-old actor was discovered in a drama school, and he got his first big break on Steven Spielberg’s TV show Band Of Brothers. Unfortunately, he was already battling drug addiction by then. He confessed:
“I would have sold my mother for a rock of crack. The police would come, people would beat me up, but it never killed me so I was like, ‘All right, what else you got?’”
Hardy fought a lot of horrors throughout his career in Hollywood, but that did not stop him from getting big acting roles. It is no surprise that he took inspiration from his own demons for 2018’s Venom. He told Good Morning Britain’s Richard Arnold (via The Sun):
“For me, obviously, I am a bog-standard alcoholic, for my whole life, in recovery as it were. There are elements of that which I go, ‘OK, that’s my inside voice.’ Normally I would act out on that, but that’s not good for me as a human being. But this isn’t me, this is a superhero entity thing. I can see the symbolism there.”
Fans have witnessed Hardy’s talent in alternating identities between the human, Eddie Brock, and the symbiote, Venom. Playing two roles in a movie is quite a daunting task!
Will Tom Hardy Return For Peaky Blinders Movie?
What fans anticipated the most from Tom Hardy’s career is his return as Alfie Solomons in the hit BBC drama Peaky Blinders. He first appeared in the show in Season 2 as the leader of the Jewish gang in London and has since then become a fan-favorite character.
The series concluded in April 2022, but an upcoming film is reportedly in the works. It is still unknown if Hardy will reprise his role as Alfie Solomons, but fans would absolutely love to see the man back in his Peaky Blinders game.
In fact, series creator Steven Knight originally did not want to bring back Hardy’s character after his death in Season 4, but due to public demand, he ultimately changed his mind.
Peaky Blinders is available on Netflix.
