Tom Hardy is probably one of the most legendary actors of this generation. His skills have constantly been proven by the spectrum of roles in his pocket. With movies like Venom and Mad Max: Fury Road, his versatility is quite out in the open. Apart from him being able to get into the minds of his characters so perfectly, there’s one more thing the actor does to prove why he has all this fame to his name.
The ability to physically and drastically transform one’s self isn’t many people’s cup of tea. Well, count Tom Hardy out of that group as he has time and again proven that he is more than willing to put in the hard work when it comes to changing his body to adhere to his roles. This statement can be backed by the time when Tom Hardy had to transform his body to appear bulkier and bigger for his role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
Tom Hardy and his Special Pizza Diet
The Gotham villain role wasn’t quite easy on Tom Hardy. Apart from giving his best while acting, he had to give his best down at the gym too. In order for Bane to look much more intimidating while being the antagonist of the movie, Hardy had to bulk up his body, and he did exactly that. The guy put on thirty pounds just for the role. Take a minute to think about the dedication he has for his characters!
While he said that it wasn’t anything compared to his co-star Christian Bale, the role still took a mental and physical toll on the actor. The demanding changes required demanding training. According to Men’s Health, Hardy’s workout regime included a four-round circuit with reps decreasing with each circuit. Owing to this the Inception actor was able to build muscle mass in no time.
Of course, one must not forget the strict diets that come complimentary with the workouts. However, for Hardy, his diet was laden with food and he more or less blamed his “slightly porky” look on binge-eating pizza. Isn’t that the dream diet? Well, not quite. The high-calorie diet did get the job done for him but didn’t really leave him feeling good. He stated that it just made him overweight, and the bulky look was a result of Hollywood magic, AKA lighting, and angles.
“That’s the magic of lighting and three or four months of eating lots of pizza. It wasn’t great for my heart. The point was to look as big as possible.”
Hardy also stated that they would shoot him from lower angles so he would appear much bigger. In reality, though, he was just “bald, slightly porky and with pencil arms.” He said that people who met him in real life were always confused and stated that they thought he would be much bigger in public.
Now while his lifestyle then wasn’t that good for his body, the efforts certainly paid off. His role as Bane is still loved to this day and is one of the best characters in DC. Hardy certainly knows how to make each of his roles a memorable one.
How Tom Hardy’s Transformations Affected His Health
In his acting debut with the series Band of Brothers, Hardy was quite on the skinny side of the scale. Needless to say, that Hardy is now long gone. Although he has gained massive respect for his transformation skills, the excessive stress put on his body has caused turmoil in his health.
The Legend actor stated that he thinks he has damaged his body a bit too much. He added that if this keeps going, he might collapse like a “house of cards under too much pressure.” While it was manageable for Hardy to go to drastic lengths in his younger days, it doesn’t seem like the best idea to him anymore.
“I think you pay the price with any drastic physical changes. It was alright when I was younger, to put myself under that kind of duress, but I think as you get into your 40s you have to be more mindful of the rapid training, packing on a lot of weight and getting physical, and then not having enough time to keep training because you’re busy filming, so your body is swimming in two different directions at the same time.”
Hardy also explained that while his body isn’t completely damaged, he is a lot more “achier” now since he keeps hearing joints click which aren’t supposed to. Even carrying his kids is a bit of a task now than before! Looks like Hardy isn’t going to be taking the extreme route anytime soon!
Source: BBC Radio 1
