Tom Hardy is definitely the master of disguise when it comes to accents and if you didn’t know who he was, it may be rather difficult to guess where he is actually from.
The talented Brit spoke to Yahoo! about his latest role in THE REVENANT, which requires – you guessed it – a very different accent to his own.
Over the years, the London-born, Hardy has changed his accent regularly. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, which really catapulted the actor’s career, required the 38-year-old to change his accent into an Australian one.
In LEGEND, we really enjoyed hearing the East London accent at the forefront as he portrayed both Kray brothers, Ronnie and Reggie – and he even managed to make their tones sound different to each other whilst maintaining the accent.
Even more of a challenge was his accent in the film CHILD 44, where Hardy played a Russian soldier on the hunt for a child serial killer and even then, he appeared convincing and we forgot that he was British.
In THE REVENANT, which he co-stars in with Leonardo DiCaprio, we see there is yet another impressive change after taken on a some-what mid-Atlantic style accent, again this is a far cry away from what we have seen him do before.
Whilst talking to Yahoo!, Hardy revealed the reason for his change: “Some people have different acts, don’t they? Or a different pair of shoes. Or some different jewellery. I like to throw a different voice on there.” He continued, “Of course [it’s by design]. If you’re going to transform, you’ve gotta make the effort.”
In THE REVENANT, Hardy plays the role of John Fitzgerald, a frontiersman who makes the mistake of leaving DiCaprio’s character Hugh Glass for dead. Glass endures unimaginable grief as well as the betrayal of his confidant, Fitzgerald. Guided by sheer will and the love of his family, Glass must navigate a vicious winter in a relentless pursuit to live and find redemption.
Hardy revealed in the interview, that his REVENANT accent was taken from a memorable character in Oliver Stone’s 1986 Vietnam War drama PLATOON. He based it “a little bit on Tom Berenger’s character Sergeant Barnes in PLATOON. I wanted a little bit of him because I loved that character, and I wanted to pay a little tribute and homage to him.”
THE REVENANT is already garnering rave reviews and a lot of award attention is already surrounding the movie, which has been directed by Academy Award-winner Alejandro González Iñárritu who helmed BIRDMAN and BABEL.
THE REVENANT is released on the 15th January in the UK and January 8th in the US.
