6 Reasons Why I Love Tom Hardy

1.    Those lips. He’s so cute! I’d hold his face in my hands and look at those lips! I think life experience has made me develop a bias for a full mouth like that.

To My Mom: You’re not reading this, but I want to address your opinion of my choice of actor. You told me his looks are “weird” and I hear you – he’s not classically handsome - but he’s at the top of my list of celebrity sexceptions and I stand by that.

2.  2009’s The Take. A dark miniseries that aired in the UK (also available for free on hulu), The Take features greed, violence, addiction and messed up families all played by very talented actors. Even the kid playing Hardy’s oldest son does a good job.

This show is the first I’d ever truly binge-watched, and upon reaching the finale, I felt the loss of Tom Hardy’s character. Mind you, Freddy is fucking creepy with a charisma that makes me feel unclean; the very way he walks is repellent and foreboding. Every cocaine hub in Colombia could be powered for two years by the electricity comin’ off that man.

   3.   He seems appreciative of his loved ones. The mention of his family in an interview (specifically his actress then-fiancée, now-wife Charlotte Riley) could make him light up. That alone earns him points with me.

   4.  His voice. The man has a unique, raspy voice. I was compelled to check him out after watching The Dark Knight Rises, and I realized that his Bane monologue wasn’t very heavily influenced by tech magic, but that he is easily able to put an odd, interesting other layer onto his tone and pronunciation. That’s so cool! Dude has one more advantage.

   5.   He makes grumpy loners look sexy. In Lawless, he’s a tough small town moonshiner whose first language is mumbling, and I’m normally annoyed by the latter, but after a long day of selling booze, grumble, grumble, and putting grown men down for a nap with the brass knuckles he keeps in his jacket pocket, I’d be willing to hook up with him, which is a better reaction than what I gave to his presence in Wuthering Heights. He does everything right in being crotchety and spiteful, but I couldn’t just observe his vulnerability and struggles with heartbreak when faced with the way he cuddles a skeleton and dons ridiculous hair. You’ve got to be kiddin’ me with that thing. At times, it is so floppy and sad that it reminds me of a wig Jean-Claude Van Damme wore when he played a serial killer.

               If on YouTube, you find the video that’s made up entirely of Hardy’s Wuthering scenes, you’d be looking at the bio pic of an oddly styled wig and how it survived the great Bane-Charlotte Riley-Rick Grimes love triangle. 

               That said, I think Hardy didn’t bring it as Bill Sikes in 2007’s Oliver Twist, and I looked at the majority of his screen time as an interpretation of some other abusive twat with dirty teeth who happened to be good-looking. It’s like he’d already scored the top spot in a Sexiest Street Urchin contest in Victorian London Magazine and now thought he could just coast.

     6. Sergeant Slaughter, My Big Brother. This is a short film released in 2011. It's simple and poignant. Hardy plays the title character, pecked at by cliché, annoyingly judgmental parents, and he is, like, made of quirks, but he’s determined and interesting and knows how to look out for his younger brother. Oh, and if you need further incentive, in the opening scene, he’s naked. Since I went into the film clueless, I was, um, quite surprised. I think I laughed aloud.
      You can find the film on YouTube. I recommend it!