Tom Hardy's Weirdest Voices In Movies & TV Shows, Ranked
As the well-known saying goes, another Tom Hardy movie, another comically offbeat voice. In Jeff Nichols' beautiful Austin Butler drama "The Bikeriders," Hardy plays Johnny, leader of Chicago motorcycle club the Vandals — and this being a midwestern biker movie, you better believe there's yet another weirdo Hardy accent involved. Speaking to Variety about the film, the British star said, "One of the things that I hold myself to, as a principle, is that you've got to make an effort to create a vocal silhouette, as well as the physical silhouette." In "The Bikeriders" it's not just Hardy that provides an intriguing vocal silhouette (Jodie Comer affects a captivating mix of Chicago and Wisconsin accents), but he surely has the most unconventional and endearingly idiosyncratic take on the midwestern accent.
Of course, this is hardly the first time Mr. Hardy has treated us all to a unique vocal performance. The man who befuddled audiences the world over with his posh guerilla fighter Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises" has always delivered when it comes to his characters' voices — to the extent that, much like his "Rises" co-star Christian Bale, nobody is really sure what the man is supposed to sound like out of character any more.
With the arrival of yet another unique Hardy vocal performance, it's high time we took stock of the many voices the British actor has given us over the course of his career and decide once and for all which is the weirdest. It should be said that this is far from an exhaustive list — Hardy has crafted a fair few "vocal silhouettes" in his time. But the examples listed below are undeniably the strangest, and perhaps even the best.
7. Forrest Bondurant (Lawless)
One of the most fascinating parts of Tom Hardy's approach to accents is that he has absolutely no problem vacillating between perfect enunciation and unintelligible slurring, even while playing the same character. In "Lawless," he plays bootlegging Virginian Forrest Bondurant, and Hardy's studied performance is notable for the way in which he doesn't really need to say anything to project an intimidating aura. Of course, he does say quite a bit, and much of it demonstrates his predilection for switching up his characters' ability to actually say words properly.
If you can understand what on earth this line was supposed to be before Hardy mangled it, you're a better man than I. But just a few seconds earlier, he demonstrates a much sharper, more clearly-defined accent when calling out the mugger threatening his brother. Hardy also seemed to embrace a Jon Bernthal-esque penchant for refusing to look at whoever he's talking to in this film, but that's not what we're here to talk about.
Instead, let's discuss how, at various points throughout "Lawless," Hardy is aided in his vocal silhouette work by a toothpick, which the actor clearly delights in rolling across his teeth as he interacts with his various scene partners. Frankly, the best parts are when Forrest isn't doing much at all, such as when a be-cardiganed Hardy sits on a porch and gazes off into the distance, wistful yet world-weary, as his brother beats up a couple of local coppers. Much like James Stewart in "Rear Window," Hardy does an excellent job of doing nothing well. Meanwhile, his accent remains like so many Hardy voices — convincing at times, silly at others, yet always compelling.
6. Ronald and Reggie Kray (Legend)
Since his breakout role in Nicolas Winding Refn's 2008 film "Bronson," Tom Hardy has displayed an affinity for playing gangsters, which he's turned into a career-long character study. In 2015's "Legend" Hardy plays London's infamous Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie. That means we got two Hardy accents for the price of one, and both of them were lovably weird in a way only the British actor can pull off.
The gangster twins provide Hardy with a unique opportunity to affect two accents that are similar yet very different. As Reggie, the actor almost sounds like a teen, with a high pitched cockney accent that sets him apart from Ron's more baritone intonation. Interestingly enough, there are traces of Bane's rasp in Ron's accent, for which Hardy takes on an oddly restrained tone that sounds as though Michael Cain suffered a nasty hit to the head and contracted a cold in the process. Ron sounds perpetually stuffed-up, while his brother speaks in a much looser high pitch that sounds as though David-Beckham became the head of a London crime syndicate.
Brian Helgeland's movie was a slick production, but there's no doubt Hardy is the real draw here. There's also no doubt that the accents are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in "Legend." Whereas Hardy has proven he can, in the words of Hitchcock, "do nothing well" (see the aforementioned "Lawless"), here his vocal talents are on full display.
5. Alfie Solomons (Peaky Blinders)
Yet another example of Tom Hardy switching from garbled nonsense to perfectly enunciation while playing the same character, Alfie Solomons is one of his most enduringly compelling vocal performances. The leader of a Camden Town-based Jewish gang, Alfie can be seen stealing almost every scene he's in, mostly due to the fact Hardy is clearly having the time of his life spitting over-the-top cockney-isms at his co-stars.
Hardy took an unusual approach to his "Peaky Blinders" character, in that, according to director Colm McCarthy, he viewed Alfie as a "bear." Just what that means, we're not sure, but it certainly made for a classic Hardy accent. Alfie's voice is pitched somewhere between Bob Hoskins' Harold Shand in "The Long Good Friday" and Phil Mitchell (for our U.S. readers, that's this guy).
As with so many Hardy characters, Alfie can be simultaneously endearing and terrifying. While the actor might overdo the cockney accent at times, it only serves to make Alfie more compelling. Why is he suddenly able to enunciate so clearly at times? Who knows, but rather than undermine the authenticity of Hardy's performance, it makes Alfie seem like he might be a lot smarter than he sometimes lets on, adding layers to his character and making for one of Hardy's best vocal performances.
4. John Fitzgerald (The Revenant)
Alejandro G. Iñárritu's epic 2015 Western drama might have earned Leonardo DiCaprio his first Oscar, but it's just as noteworthy for giving us a Tom Hardy accent that oscillated between Sam Elliot in his 2000 Super Bowl commercial and a bedraggled Forrest Gump.
Hardy plays fur trapper John Fitzgerald, who after Leo's Hugh Glass is almost mauled to death by a bear, reveals himself to be an even nastier piece of work than his racist ramblings suggested. Fitzgerald tries to convince the rest of his group to mercy kill Glass, but even after they decide against it, he tries to smother Glass to death.
In all, then, a pretty meaty villain role for Hardy, who once again enveloped himself in the character. Of course, that meant designing a suitably idiosyncratic accent, and John Fitzgerald did not disappoint on that front. His accent is southern, but from which area does the villainous fur trapper hail? That, like so many of Hardy's vocal choices, remains a mystery. Needless to say that Fitzgerald's voice is suitably fried in a way that conveys a lifetime of struggle and hardship. As such, "The Revenant" is easily one of the best Tom Hardy movies.
3. Max Rockatansky (Mad Max: Fury Road)
There's a reason "Mad Max: Fury Road" won six Oscars and is still considered one of the best movies in the "Mad Max" saga. That reason isn't necessarily Tom Hardy's accent, but that also doesn't mean this particular "vocal silhouette" isn't one of the finest the man ever crafted.
Hardy doesn't say much in "Mad Max: Fury Road," but when his character does speak, it's yet another treat for aficionados of the man's ever-changing vocal tone. Again, Hardy doesn't need to speak in order to maintain his on-screen presence, and "Fury Road" is another example of his effortless magnetism. But for those who love a needlessly complex Hardy accent, Max Rockatansky doesn't disappoint.
Let's begin with the impressive vocal fry Hardy affects here. I'm not sure if director George Miller EQd the actor's voice to play up his marbly rasp, but just listen to the man say the word "Alright" here. That is a smooth sizzle. What's more, Hardy took stepping into Mel Gibson's shoes seriously enough not to concentrate too much on trying to emulate the former franchise star's performance. But at times, his accent belies a creeping desire to evoke the ghost of Gibson, with Hardy often sounding similar to the Aussie star. Other times, however, he sounds nothing like the erstwhile franchise lead, channeling what appears to be a South African inflection, and often just settling for a straight up British accent. It certainly wasn't enough to undermine the film, but it was, at times, a distracting element in an otherwise outstanding movie.
2. Eddie Brock/Venom (Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tom Hardy has been asked about his accent quite a bit. In a Wired autocomplete interview, he was asked "What is Tom Hardy's accent," to which he replied:
"It's a collage of places, people, feelings, it's irrelevant. If you understand me that's all that matters. It's a hybrid of wish fulfillment and shame. I think I'm bourgeois, middle class, posh, middle class t**t really. And I affect it with all kinds of interesting variants, to make myself seem interesting."
That might serve as somewhat of an explanation for why Hardy's Eddie Brock in 2018's "Venom" and 2021's "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" appears to be a San Franciscian with a Queens accent. Hardy loves doing a squeaky "aw shucks" American accent, which was on full display when he co-starred with the late James Gandolfini in 2014's Brooklyn-based crime drama "The Drop." But in keeping with his "collage of places, people, and feelings" approach, Hardy also voices the titular alien symbiote in "Venom," for which he adopts a much more powerful tone, sort of like if you ran a disgruntled James Earl Jones through a vocal distortion effect.
In spite of this erratic display, as we at /Film said in our original "Venom" review, "Tom Hardy and his squirrelly American accent are oddly delightful to watch here." If "Venom 3" does, as the trailer suggests, make Marvel's multiverse more confusing, at least Hardy's baffling accent will have primed us for yet more bewilderment.
1. Bane (The Dark Knight Rises)
The Tom Hardy accent that still reigns supreme as the most outlandish is, of course, his Bane voice. Hardy based Bane's voice on a real-life legend — a bare-knuckle brawler named Bartley Gorman. You can hear a bit of Bartley in this documentary clip, and decide for yourself how much Hardy took from the so-called "King of the Gypsies." But there's no doubt the actor infused his "vocal silhouette" with uniquely Hardey-esque flourishes.
There are too many quotables to choose from when it comes to Hardy's Bane, from his infamous taunting of a nearly-broken Batman, "Ah, you think darkness is your ally," to his questioning of Ben Mendelsohn's Roland Daggett, "Do you feel in charge?" For me, though, it's Hardy's delivery of the line "Ah yes! I was wondering what would break first — your spirit... or your body." The nonchalance with which he raises his pitch for the "Ah yes" and calmly continues his observation is simultaneously ridiculous and chilling. He sounds like my grandad deciding between cardigans in the morning, yet somehow remains as imposing as any on-screen villain ever has.
While most of the commentary surrounding Hardy's Bane accent is good-natured teasing, there was one major issue with the whole thing. Namely, we couldn't hear a darn word the man was saying half the time. Much of this was down to the fact that he spent almost the entire film hidden behind a sizable mask — an issue exacerbated by the vocal filtering Christopher Nolan added to the villain's lines in post. But there's no doubt his idiosyncratic phrasing and inflections make Hardy's Bane a difficult man to understand. That said, it's also these very elements that made the character one of the actor's most memorable.