Tom Hardy’s dedication to his roles is well-known among moviegoers. He immerses himself in the roles he plays and that helped the actor to rise above the line with several memorable performances in his career.
He went bold for roles quite a few times but his audition tape for Star Trek: Nemesis made Sir Patrick Stewart baffled as Hady appeared partially naked when he was 24. Hardy’s magic worked as he went on to play the character he auditioned for.
Tom Hardy’s Nude Audition Tape for Star Trek: Nemesis
MCU’s X-Men star Sir Patrick Stewart was stunned when he saw Tom Hardy’s audition video tape playing Shinzon— a young clone of Stewart’s iconic character Captain Picard. “It was a long, long search to find the actor to play this role. Long before I got involved,” Stewart told ET once.
“They were seeing actors in L.A. and in New York. And, of course, in London, because the feeling was that it would be good to find a [British] actor, so there would be at least that vocal similarity there.”
In The Next Generation movie, Romulans created Shinzon, a genetic duplicate of Picard. So there was a huge search party for a talent who could play the role in relation to Captain’s trait. “We didn’t know where to go. We couldn’t find someone,” Stewart said. After an extensive search and with the help of Stewart’s former agent who set Hardy up with the series, “Tom put himself on video.”
Recalling the audition tape of the Venom actor, Stewart revealed that the video was not what they were expecting at all. “It was a bizarre video and there are some people who believe he was actually naked in this video,” Stewart said. “He had the sides of some of the Shinzon scenes, but he was improvising them. He wasn’t really doing what was in the script,” he added.
“It certainly made us all sit up and pay attention. Tom is an extraordinary actor. Really, very distinctive. Very unique.”
Evidently, Hardy was on board to play Shinzon in the Stuart Baird-directed $67 million movie.
Tom Hardy On Playing Shinzon
Tom Hardy as Shinzon
Hardy, who never watched anything from the Star Trek Universe did intensive hard work for the role. “I always knew [Star Trek] existed. Like you know Levi Jeans and Coca-Cola exist,” the Venom actor said of his previous association with the Universe. But he was familiar with the characters.
“You know that Captain Picard is captain of the [Starship] Enterprise. Obviously, I know that. You know who Kirk is. You know who Spock is. You know who the Klingons are. Vulcans. But I never followed the series. Not until I actually got the job and then I managed to watch all of The Next Generation stuff and all the films,” Hardy said.
But it was a responsible role for the actor to play a character who endured constant abuse and broke the chain to build an army for the interest of his own. Soon the actor started diving deep into the character and watched many previous Star Trek episodes.
“I did watch a lot of the old Star Trek [episodes] to look at Patrick, because initially, [when] you’re told you have to play a clone of someone, immediately you’re gonna think, ‘Well, I better look at everything he does— how he moves. How he walks. How he talks. His shadow moves. His jacket pulling,’” Hardy said.
Still, it was not easy to play the younger clone of Captain. “We have the same genetic makeup, but we have totally different lives,” the Legend actor said adding that he did not have to copy the Captain but rather bring something of his own to the table.
Source: ET Online.
