I wanted my dad to be proud of me, and I fell into acting because there wasn’t anything else I could do, and in it I found a discipline that I wanted to keep coming back to, that I love and I learn about every day.
I like to be other people, not me. And when you’re on the red carpet, it’s like, ‘Here’s Tom Hardy.’ I don’t want to be me. That’s why I play other people.
I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting.
Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is, and not so much a matter of being real.
With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it’s just not acting. It’s lying.
When you’re young, it’s hard not to get together with your costar.
We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are – politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
There are so many directors in blockbuster sagas that are so scared to kill off their characters, and are so comfortable with bringing characters back to life, and all of these little writer tricks that I think are quite cheeky. And I really like that she was actually killing people, because if you’re not making it dangerous, then why are we even here? Why are we concerned by the story? Why do we care? Leslye has such a backbone as a writer to make you fall in love with these characters and then slaughter them all like pigs.[about Leslye Headland]
That was the first thing she said to me in our meeting. She was like, “You might be playing an alien and you die pretty early on,” and I was like, “I’m in! I love playing dead!”[about her conversation with Leslye Headland]
Lots of actors are slightly introverted, odd people who pretend to be other people. And then doing press it’s like, “What? I’ve got to go out and be charming and interesting? I like playing other characters because I don’t think that’s my forte!”
It’s so weird to think about how we had such a private experience and now it’s not anymore. I went onto the show when I was 17, I turned 18 while filming it. It felt like such a cathartic experience. It’s so weird that now everyone gets to watch it. It’s like our little secret – like everything that happened behind the cameras is our ownership.
Inside, you’ve got the voice, the character, all the context, everything you’ve researched, then you put the costume on, and it seals it all in. Costume is integral, but it clicks into place last.