Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is back this year with Oscar hopeful Bardo, after winning Best Picture for his previous two drama movies The Revenant (2015) and Birdman (2014). Seven years is a long gap between movies, but it’s possible that he’s spent that time recovering from an overly enthusiastic hug Tom Hardy gave him on the set of the snow-bound Revenant.
The Revenant is famous for a particularly tenacious bear who mauls Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, but back in 2015, Tom Hardy confessed that he gave director Inarritu a bear hug on set to diffuse tensions on the somewhat fraught production.
Allegedly, many crew members left because it was such a hard shoot, and DiCaprio has said; “I can name 30 or 40 sequences that were some of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. Whether it’s going in and out of frozen rivers, or sleeping in animal carcasses, or what I ate on set. [I was] enduring freezing cold and possible hypothermia constantly.” DiCaprio was rewarded with the Best Actor Oscar for his efforts.
Tom Hardy says (via Vanity Fair) that he had a particular method for diffusing tension with Inarritu; “When things get a bit too serious, I go, ‘Why don’t we have a cuddle in front of all these people here?’ It ends with both of us falling down in the snow. I think that’s a good thing. If I’m the naughty boy for doing that, then I’d rather be the naughty boy and release that tension.”
Since 2015, Hardy has appeared in the television shows Taboo and Peaky Blinders, as well as Christopher Nolan’s war movie Dunkirk and played Al Capone. Hardy has also brought the Marvel character we never knew we needed – Venom to the big screen twice. He is currently working on the script of the third movie.
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