5 Off My Head: Tom Hardy at Forty

One of the two finest actors born the same year as me is celebrating his 40th today - Edward Thomas Hardy was born in Hammersmith, England on this day in the year 1977, the son of a painter mother and a writer father. His father is named Chips Hardy! I want to be named Chips Hardy! Maybe if I marry Tom Hardy I can have him call me Chips. I don't care if that's weird, it's now my fantasy, and I'll do all within my ability to make it happen.

Anyway! Tom is 40 today and he's in the thick of his career glory, getting praise lavished across those lascivious lips at every turn. Ahead he's got a new movie from The Assassination of Jesse James' director Andrew Dominik, he's probably got another Mad Max movie, there'll be another season of the great fun Taboo, and he's playing another big brawny superhero bad guy in the Venom movie. But what about what's behind Tom Hardy?

No no not that. I mean career-wise. He's already accomplished quite a bit in the decade since his artistic breakthrough with Nicolas Winding Refn (they should really work together again), and surprisingly I haven't done a list of my favorite performances from Tom before this. So let's do just that right this minute!

(Oh and sidenote: if you know me then you might be surprised by a couple of these choices since the actual movies that two of these good performances come from I do not like. But Tom's the best thing about them both. Can you guess which ones I mean?)

Charles Bronson, Bronson (2008)

"You shouldn't mess with boys that are bigger than you."

Eames, Inception (2010)

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling."

Bane, The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

"The shadows betray you,
because they belong to me!"

John Fitzgerald, The Revenant(2015)

"God giveth, God taketh away."

James Delaney, Taboo (2017)

" I witnessed and participated in darkness
that you cannot conceive."

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