Edward Thomas “Tom” Hardy is his full name.1)
Edward “Chips” Hardy, his father, is a novelist and comic writer.2)
Hardy was born in the London borough of Hammersmith September 15, 1977.3)
His mother, Anne, is a painter and artist.4)
He received the 2003 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer for his roles in both In Arabia We'd All Be Kings and Blood.5)
He attended Tower House School and Reed's School before attending Richmond Drama School and the Drama Centre London.6)
He appeared in the 2007 production of The Man of Mode and garnered great reviews for his performance in the 2010 drama The Long Red Road, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.7)
He made his cinematic debut in Black Hawk Down.8)
For his performance as Skank in the 2003 production of In Arabia We'd All Be King, he received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Most Promising Newcomer.9)
The HBO military drama miniseries Band of Brothers, the BBC historical drama miniseries The Virgin Queen, ITV's Wuthering Heights, the BBC British historical crime drama television series Peaky Blinders, and the Sky 1 drama series The Take are among Hardy's television roles.10)
At the age of 21, Hardy won The Big Breakfast's Find Me a Supermodel competition in 1998.11)
His other significant films include Star Trek: Nemesis, RocknRolla, the biographical psychological drama Bronson, the science fiction thriller Inception, the sports drama Warrior, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the crime drama Lawless, the drama Locke, and the gangster flick The Drop.12)
He also played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, “Mad” Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road, and both Kray brothers in the murder thriller Legend.13)
Hardy joined Drama Centre London in September 1998, but was let go soon after after landing the role of US Army Private John Janovec in the award-winning HBO-BBC miniseries Band of Brothers.14)
Hardy married Sarah Ward in 1999, but the couple divorced in 2004.15)
Hardy appeared in BBC Four's production of the 1960s science fiction series A for Andromeda.16)
In the crime thriller Legend, he played London thugs Reggie and Ronnie Kray in a dual role.17)
In 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road, Hardy portrayed the titular character, Max Rockatansky. Critics loved his portrayal, and the film achieved both critical acclaim and box office success. As of July 2015, it had earned $366 million against a budget of $150 million, making it the highest-grossing picture in the Mad Max franchise.18)
Hardy played Robert Dudley, Elizabeth I's boyhood companion, in the 2005 BBC drama The Virgin Queen. Throughout her reign over England in the 16th century, the miniseries depicts them as enjoying a platonic, yet intensely amorous, romance.19)
Hardy starred as homosexual mobster Handsome Bob in Guy Ritchie's London gangster flick RocknRolla in September 2008.20)
He has a kid, Louis Thomas, with his ex-girlfriend Rachael Speed from 2004 to 2009.21)
Hardy started dating actress Charlotte Riley in 2009. Riley and Hardy met while filming Wuthering Heights. The pair proposed in 2010 and married in July 2014. They have two rescue dogs, one of which Hardy appears in a PETA advertisement to promote pet adoption. The couple had their first child together in October 2015.22)
He gained three stone (19 kg/42 pounds) for the film Bronson.23)
In 2015, Hardy was named one of GQ magazine's 50 best dressed British guys.24)
In his early to mid-20s, Hardy battled alcohol and crack cocaine problems. He went to treatment and has been clean and sober since 2003.25)
He and Riley became patrons of Bowel Cancer UK in 2012.26)
He is the only actor to have played a villain in both the Star Trek and Batman franchises (in Star Trek Nemesis) (in The Dark Knight Rises).27)
He was in the same theater class as Michael Fassbender, whom Hardy described as the most gifted actor in the school.28)
Because he was a fan of the film Mad Max, Hardy called his childhood dog Max.29)
Gary Oldman is his acting idol, with whom he has already collaborated three times, in The Dark Knight Rises, Lawless, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.30)