Tom Hardy had a lovely profile in the New York Times on Friday. It’s not the most enlightening piece – all in, the NYT gives us maybe ten quotes from Tom, including the fact that Tom calls a barista “love”. But it’s not meant to be some super-deep exploration of Tom Hardy the Bloke, I guess it’s just supposed to be breezy, “this is the guy playing Mad Max.” And The Bloke was in a decent enough mood (he handled his smoker’s cravings by taking draws “on an e-cigarette”). The interview took place at CinemaCon, in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. Some highlights:

Working on Mad Max: “It took a huge weight off my shoulders when I realized how big the piece was. It was 50 miles to the horizon, overseas, 360 degrees of sand and sky, and then there was this just sort of S-and-M party, do you know what I mean? With Hells Angels types right in the middle of it, with parasails and explosions. And it was very weird. It was fantastic.”

Who he is as a celebrity: “I’m not very interesting, by the way. I’m monosyllabic and sometimes just allowed to play in the corner. And I might express myself physically instead, if that’s all right. Cool?”

He’s drawn to odd characters: “In my job, I think it would be wrong for me to not push an extra little bit to see what’s behind certain walls. When I’m putting together a character, I kind of blend them with lots of things, part advertising, you know, the branding that you’ve seen before, so people are, ‘Oh, I kind of recognize that person, but I don’t know what it is.’ ”

He won’t complain about his ‘designer problems’: “I’m lucky to be an actor. There’s no life or death here, just humiliation. All right, that’s the worst thing that could happen. It’s just the first day of school, isn’t it? If you get beaten up on the playground, you still have to go back to school.”

[From The NYT]

I like that Tom rather consistently shrugs off complaints about an actor’s life. He’s admitted that he’s “difficult” to work with and that he takes his job seriously, but I appreciate that he’s not sitting in interviews, complaining about how he’s misunderstood or he doesn’t even enjoy his life or the work.

And here’s the trailer for Legend, where Tom plays the real-life Kray twins. Double the pleasure, double the fun. This trailer came out a few days ago! I think it looks okay.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.