Tom Hardy's "Staggering" Year Brings Inception and Mad Max
Posted 11.25.09 by Ryan
British actor Tom Hardy has had a few glimpses at stardom, rising from obscurity to a role in Band of Brothers that led to playing the villain in Star Trek: Nemesis and supporting roles in movies like Layer Cake and RocknRolla.
Hardy is now experiencing another brush with possible fame. He's been cast in both Christopher Nolan's Inception and as Mad Max in Mad Max: Fury Road. Hardy told MTV that no one is more surprised by his recent success than he is.
I didn't expect to get Mad Max. I really didn't. I didn't ever expect
to get the lead in a Hollywood movie, for Chris Nolan off the bat to offer me [Inception] without an audition and then to go sit with [director] George Miller [on Fury Road] and work with him and not really audition in the orthodox way of auditioning — this year's been
crazy. I've been working as an actor for a long time now, and I've been waiting for an independent film to come along because it was very hard
to get cast as a character actor, as a lead — being credible but bankable. It's very hard to break in when there are plenty of people who can be cast, who can green-light, who can put bums in the seats. So this whole year has been staggering.
Inception opens July 16, 2010, while Mad Max: Fury Road is scheduled to open sometime in 2011.