Tom Hardy is no stranger to exploring the dark side when it comes to the characters he embodies onscreen, and his latest project marks a second visit to the crime-ridden world of mobsters with famed director Guy Ritchie.
In his new series MobLand, executive produced by Ritchie, Hardy plays loyal fixer Harry Da Souza to one of two rival London crime families led by Conrad and Maeve Harrigan (Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren).
“He’s obviously the right guy for the job,” Ritchie, who also directed the first two episodes, told the Associated Press about the actor.
Hardy previously worked with Ritchie on his 2008 film RocknRolla, playing a supporting role as mobster Handsome Bob. He has since moved to leading man status and shared how their partnership worked on this series.
“He’s very affable, and he’s quite laid-back as well, actually,” Hardy told Yahoo Entertainment about Ritchie’s directing style. “He gets things done very quickly, and he moves on very fast, and he finishes very early in the day.”
Hardy stars as a fixer for a London crime family in MobLand. (Luke Varley/Paramount+)
His experience on his first Ritchie project, in contrast, offered less face time with the director.
“I loved doing RocknRolla, but I didn’t feel like I had much of a chance to work with Guy, because that was Gerard Butler’s film, really, and he led it, so I only really got to shoot for a couple of weeks,” he told Insider.
Regarding his role in the Paramount+ series, Hardy told Yahoo the Snatch director “doesn’t really give advice.”
“He just has an open conversation about what he wants to do and how he feels something is, and then you get on with it,” he said.
Co-star Paddy Considine, who plays Conrad and Maeve’s son Kevin in the series, agreed.
“Just jump in. Guy moves so fast,” he said.
“He likes to rewrite a lot. I find working with him really exciting, because I could turn up some days and have two lines of dialogue, and he’s [re]written me a monologue,” Considine continued. “I’m going, ‘It’s not just a little change. You’ve given me all that to learn?’ And it keeps you on your toes, to be honest with you.”
Mandeep Dhillon, who plays Considine’s onscreen half-sister, agreed, recalling an especially funny café scene between her and her other onscreen half-brother, Brendan (Daniel Betts).
“We rewrote it that morning. We got to set, and [Ritchie] said, ‘Yeah, let’s rewrite this,’” she explained. “So we did and then he sort of sat in the café just off camera and said to me, ‘Do you mind if I just shout some stuff out to you whilst we film, and you just go along with whatever I’m saying?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, OK. Let’s try it.’
“I love that about Guy’s work,” Dhillon said. “You get magic from those moments that I don’t know if you’d necessarily get if you had sat there, rehearsed it and done all that work.”
Joanne Froggatt, who plays Harry’s wife, Jan, calls Ritchie a “decisive and confident” director who’s not afraid to inject some humor on set with the actors.
“On the first day of the shoot, there’s a little sort of speech thing that I did and I was like, ‘OK, did that work?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, yeah … I’ll tell you if it doesn’t work.’ And I was like, ‘OK, great.’ He went, ‘You actors, you’re so insecure, aren’t you?’ It just made me laugh.”
MobLand is streaming on Paramount+, with a new episode each Sunday through June 1.
