You would think that as one of the most popular and charming individuals in Hollywood, Tom Hardy wouldn’t need much help when it comes to relationships.
However, the British actor received some advice from longtime convict and inmate Charles Bronson no less, when the Bronson star was on the phone with him while his biographical film was being shot.
The 2008 film meant that Hardy was in contact with Bronson throughout filming to better understand the man he was playing, and conversations between the two would sometimes stray away from aspects of the movie.
On one of these occasions though, things got deeper than expected, as the actor revealed in an interview 16 years ago how he would be bombarded with calls and messages from Bronson that he wouldn’t answer, until one day, after a break-up, he picked up.
The actor would speak to the convict while filming his biographical film (Universal History Archive/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The then 30-year-old didn’t hold back when the criminal asked how he was doing.
He recalled: “I said ‘I’m just not comfortable, I’m saying goodbye to someone that I really loved. I’m not happy I’m not in a good space. I can’t be with a woman and yet I can’t be without one’.
“It was like Therapy 101 with Charlie Bronson.”
As the Hollywood A-lister laid his soul bare to the convict, though, he got some surprising, pretty poetic and some admittedly downright disturbing advice.
You can watch the interview clip below (it contains some strong language):
“Do you remember the floods?” Bronson apparently began.
“Do you remember that boy who got his foot stuck in the grate, and the river kept rising, and it kept rising, and it kept rising, and eventually they tried to get him out but he drowned?
“Well, that wouldn’t have happened to me. Do you want to know why? Because I’d have said, cut it off now.
“Tom, what I’m trying to say is, right, what I’m trying to say, son, is sometimes, yeah, you’ve got to cut a little piece of yourself off, yeah, no matter how much it hurts, in order to grow. In order to move on. Do you know what I mean?”
Then, without skipping a beat, he asked: “What you having for your tea?”
Tom Hardy played the infamous convict in his biographical film (Vertigo)
We’re not sure whether Hardy took that advice into his subsequent relationships, but he did eventually find lasting love, having been with Charlotte Riley since meeting her on the set of ITV’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights in 2009.
The couple got married in 2014 and now have two children together. Can Hardy give Bronson credit for any of this? We’re not so sure.
He can probably give him a little for his subsequent film career though, with the biopic pushing the profile of the London-born actor to greater heights.
Hardy subsequently went on to land leading roles in the likes of The Dark Knight Rises, Peaky Blinders and the Venom series.