- Tom Hardy says playing Venom was an “extension” of playing Bronson
- Says films share similar “super surrealism” DNA
- Admits he’ll miss playing Venom
Tom Hardy tells Pubity that playing a super-powered symbiote in Venom: The Last Dance is an “extension” of his experience delivering one of his most praised early performances.
Hitting cinemas on Friday 25 October, the third instalment of Sony’s Spider-Man spin-off franchise sees Eddie Brock (Hardy) forced to go on the run with his gooey alien counterpart Venom as they find themselves fugitives chased by enemies from both of their respective worlds.
While promoting the threequel, Hardy joined his Last Dance director and long-time friend Kelly Marcel to tell Pubity how playing Venom is like a natural “extension” of his time playing notorious British criminal Charles Bronson in Nicolas Widn Refn’s 2008 indie Bronson.
“Super surrealism… but epic fun”
“The first time [Marcel and I] properly got together on a film was on Bronson,” explained Hardy, recalling how Marcel was hired to do uncredited re-writes on Refn’s hard-hitting biopic of someone who is regularly labelled Britain’s most violent prisoner.
The pair met at an acting workshop hosted by Hardy when Marcel was still an aspiring actor working at a video rental store in London.
“Kelly wrote all of Bronson, which was incredible. There was a draft but there was nothing challenging about it or exciting or interesting so I really needed Kelly to come in and help with that.”
Hardy went on to explain how Marcel was instrumental in featuring the film’s now-iconic theatre-inspired scenes where Bronson appears as an actor on-stage in various theatrical make-up designs to discuss pivotal moments in his life.
“She created all the make-ups and all the dialogues and the theatre… it was brilliant and challenged me in a way that Nic could never challenge,” he says.
“It was wonderful to have that partner then and now here we are doing Venom: The Last Dance and it’s an extension of that work, which is super surrealism and natural but epic fun as well.”
“There’s always been another one coming”
Meanwhile, Hardy admitted that he’ll miss playing Venom after The Last Dance finally hits cinemas.
“I’ll miss them both,” explained the star, referring to his time playing both Brock and Venom. “I was watching them the other night and it hit me that, aww I’ll miss coming back to my friends and everybody at work because there’s always been another one coming,” he says.
Hardy went on to explain that it’s usually shortly after the release of one Venom movie where talk of a follow-up would begin.
“That’s what we’d be doing now. The pitch would be next week, then the draft would be commissioned… So yeah, I’ll miss that I suppose.
“Until the next one…” he added in a quick and off-hand way.
Wait? Hasn’t The Last Dance been pegged as Hardy’s final ride as Venom?
With a character this larger than life, perhaps he’ll eventually be reunited with Venom at some point in the future.
