Tom Hardy was born Edward Thomas Hardy on September 15, 1977 in Hammersmith, London. He joined the London Drama Centre in 1998 but had to leave in order to film the critically acclaimed HBO miniseries, Band of Brothers. Hardy then went on to join another ensemble cast as Twombly on Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down. This sequence of war dramas marked his career, but he became widely known for playing Captain Picard’s adversary, Shinzon, on the movie Star Trek: Nemesis. Trained by the mentor of Sir Anthony Hopkin, Hardy was nominated for a 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer of 2003 in a Society of London Theatre Affiliate for his performance in Arabia, We'd All Be Kings, which was shown at the Hampstead Theatre. He was later awarded the 2003 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer for his portrayals in the Royal Court Theatre’s Blood, as well as for Arabia, We’d All Be Kings.
In 2002, Tom Hardy stayed in the United Kingdom to work on the independent feature film, Dot the i, which also starred Gael Garcia Bernal. Hardy continued to travel for his roles, going to North Africa to play Pascal Dupont in Simon: An English Legionnaire. He later returned to England to film LD 50 Lethal Dose in 2003. He was also seen in The Reckoning, EMR and Layer Cake. In 2005, he appeared in the BBC miniseries The Virgin Queen, playing Robert Dudley. He later worked with the network once more, landing roles in the Richard Fell adaptation of the sci-fi series A for Andromeda. Tom Hardy has also been a cast member for the series Meadowlands, playing the character Jack Donnelly. He was soon given roles on TV productions of Sweeney Todd, Gideon’s Daughter, and Colditz. His film credits include roles in Minotaur, and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Scwartzmann. In 2007, Hardy landed the lead role in the BBC2 drama Stuart: A Life Backwards. He later starred in the comic action film Sucker Punch and the drama The Inheritance.
(Photos courtesy of Showtime)