Bane on a Plane, Tom Hardy's Other Hits & Career Direction

Bane on A Plane. Tom Hardy as Bane in the opening scene of The Dark Knight Rises

From the opening sequence of The Dark Knight Rises it is clear that comic book villain Bane is going to be a villian to be reckoned with, with a powerful combination of deep seeded dedication, intellect, financing, and a moral disconnect to acts of brutality, death and violence.

Oh yes, and that mask and voice manipulation is scary in a modern Darth Vader sort of way.

Since the release of the movie I've observed an extreme uptick in traffic to this blog with people looking for images and information about Tom Hardy's role in the film Inception (taking them this post: What's in a name? Eames in Inception).

I have to think that one of the questions people end up asking ending the movie is "Who was that guy? I'm not sure if I've seen him and something before?" With Inception being Hardy's other biggest hit, the webcrawling begins.

Tom Hardy

Here's some pictures of Tom Hardy's in his other major film roles, presented below in chronological order. He has also had appearances in TV movies and miniseries (including Band of Brothers, The Virgin Queen, and Wuthering Heights) not including in the picture presentation that follows.

Twombly, Black Hawk Down (2001)

Shinzon, Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Raumont, Marie Antoinette (2006)

Charles Bronson/Michael Peterson, Bronson (2008)

Eames, Inception (2010)

Tommy Conlon, Warrior (2011)

Ricki Tarr, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Career Direction

Tom Hardy's year to year line up continues to seem quite full with the type of roles that aren't usually the headline role, but are still high billed. And it's here that I question whether Tom Hardy's career will go one of three ways.

1. The Headline role in low budget independent films.
2. Critically appreciated supporting roles in studio prestige projects
3. Supporting action star in successful box office popcorn flicks.

Hardy's career seems to dip back and forth between these three genres, over the past couple years, and I'm sure he's glad for the work and opportunity to land spots in all three of these categories, I question where it will fall.

Clearly the Batman role falls in category 3 (supporting action role), but later this year we will also see him as Forrest Bonderaunt in Lawless, a role I would consider in category 2 above (supporting critical role in a prestige project).

And all that to say, next year he enters a fourth category, as lead role in an action film, playing Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road. I have think his opportunity to head down this path to stardom occurs here if the film is a box office success. Here is where I question if Hardy is wanting to be the action star or the award winner. Or maybe both.