Patrick Stewart Thought Tom Hardy Would Vanish Forever After Star Trek: Nemesis
Tom Hardy's first major film gag was playing one of the many faceless soldiers in Ridley Scott's overwrought war thriller "Black Hawk Down" in 2001. The actor was only about 24 at the time and had just come off of the acclaimed HBO WWII miniseries "Band of Brothers." His second feature was also a war drama called "Deserter," a low-profile project that was released in 2002. Casting directors seemed to like the way Hardy looked in uniform.
Also in 2002, however, Hardy was offered a higher-profile role — and a very challenging one — when he was cast as Shinzon in Stuard Baird's "Star Trek: Nemesis." Shinzon was a clone of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) who had been raised in a Reman mining colony, and who would rise up against his Roluman oppressors and attempt to take control of the Romulan Star Empire. Shinzon was essentially a younger, more aggressive version of Picard, and Hardy had to modulate his performance accordingly. To ensure that Hardy looked more like Stewart, Shinzon sported a bald head, and the actor was outfitted with a prosthetic nose that resembled Stewart's own (see the above photo).
As audiences would soon learn, Hardy has a talent for playing outsize, intense, somewhat bizarre characters, and he was already running at full speed to play Shinzon. Indeed, Hardy's performance was so strange, that it put Stewart off a bit. In his new autobiography "Making It So: A Memoir," Stewart recalled working with Hardy and how the young upstart came across as weird and solitary. He also admitted that he didn't much like "Nemesis" in general, with Hardy's oddball behavior being merely one element of that.
Shinzon
"Star Trek: Nemesis" holds the record as the lowest-grossing of all the "Star Trek" films to date, even not adjusted for inflation; it only made $43 million domestically compared to the next-lowest "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" which made $52 million. "Nemesis" was considered a disappointment all around and seemed to signal the death of the franchise. Add to that the cancelation of "Star Trek: Enterprise" in 2005, and Trek was more or less considered to be at an end. It just wasn't popular anymore. Some might theorize Trek's messages of peace and diplomacy weren't welcome in a post-9/11 America.
Stewart recalled that "Nemesis" simply wasn't that good (although he did get to drive a dune buggy), and that Hardy didn't socialize with the rest of the cast. Stewart wrote (as re-printed in Variety):
"'Nemesis,' which came out in 2002, was particularly weak. I didn't have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie's villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy. [...] Tom wouldn't engage with any of us on a social level. [...] Never said, 'Good morning,' never said, 'Goodnight,' and spent the hours he wasn't needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend ... He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him."
That Tom Hardy, it seems, wasn't destined for greatness. At least not in Stewart's eye. Stewart learned long ago that being social with an ensemble cast is vital to establishing a role and perfecting scenes. Several times, he talked about the time he yelled at Denise Crosby that he was not on set "to have fun." Hardy still needed to learn to relax the same way he once did.
We shall never hear from him again
Stewart recalled the last day of shooting "Nemesis," and the somewhat catty thing he said behind his co-star's back. Confident that Hardy couldn't develop a rapport with the many "Star Trek" legacy actors, Stewart felt his career would suffer. He said:
"On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door. As it closed, I said quietly to Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes], 'And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.' It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong."
And dramatically so. Hardy would continue to rise in fame, appearing in several British crime movies like "Layer Cake," and "RocknRolla" before exploding in earnest with his tour-de-force performance in the 2008 film "Bronson." From there, he became something of a household name, starring alternately in high-profile Hollywood blockbusters and multiple intense indies. He fell in with Christopher Nolan, and appeared in the filmmaker's projects "Inception" and "The Dark Knight Rises" while also mesmerizing audiences in films like "Locke" and "Warrior." He played twin brothers in "Legend," and the title role in "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Hardy, meanwhile, was always very open about his process playing Shinzon, once speaking to IGN at length about his acting. Hardy may not have been social on set, but he took his role deathly seriously. He wasn't a Trekkie, which helped him invent his role from the ground up. That may explain why he wasn't eager to socialize with Stewart or his other castmates. He wasn't starstruck. He was merely professional. Stewart, luckily and eventually, recognized game.