“You want to study human beings and tell stories that are 
relevant… We were always encouraged in drama school back when—and I 
got thrown out of drama school—we were always told that if you step on 
stage, you have to step on stage with a mi…

“You want to study human beings and tell stories that are relevant… We were always encouraged in drama school back when—and I got thrown out of drama school—we were always told that if you step on stage, you have to step on stage with a minimum of seven different characteristics. In order to transform, you had to have a physical silhouette and a vocal silhouette, and of course your inner tempo so you could really disguise yourself. From where I’m standing, there are two sides to acting. There’s camouflage, and there’s the hustle. The hustle is basically: “How am I going to get whatever it is I need, and what am I prepared to do in order to get it?”

Now, you can do that in your own accent and have a healthy career, just changing different hats, having a nice haircut, a nice suntan, a six-pack, and a set of great teeth. You can go a long way with that style of acting. Then there’s the other side, which is camouflage and says, “I put on a hat, a rubber nose, a cloak, put false teeth in, and I change my accent and walk with a limp.” You can take it all the way to Vaudevillian or surrealism or like Pixar to the green, motion-capture guys. I’ve always tried to hybrid the two together with the ability to have a foot in both camps, leaning on the strengths on one or the other at times, and I think if you only use your own voice, you can only have one shot at doing that, and then you’re done unless you make a career out of being you…

The paradox or irony here is that now I’m going to become Tom Hardy, the bloke who always does the silly voice. Someone will always want to put you in a box, and then you become the parody of yourself. The constant is, though, that I just want to make the effort to try and transform as much as possible from one character to another, so that people can immerse themselves into the story and not in my performance. That’s my job, isn’t it?“ - Tom Hardy