Tom Hardy Explains How He Created Voices for VENOM and BANE | Interview

Guys, good to see you both again. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate you. Hey, Jake. I'm so excited to talk with you. Tom, I'm going to start with you because you have created so many incredible and unique voices for all of your characters. But since they're all so different, I'm really curious if the process as an actor is different voice to voice. So sort of keeping it in the world of comic books, what's the difference between how you found the voice of Venom compared to how you found the voice of Bane? Venom I had already because I use that voice for my dog. When I'm doing impressions of my dog talking to me. Yeah, like, like at home, I've always sort of a variable, a variant on that. And that's kind of a mixture of Buster Rhymes and Method Man and James Brown, a little bit of Richard Burton and stoic, there's a sort of stoicism as well. And then an emphatic bombastic comes from a primal creature that's like, you know, hope springs eternally with the dog, you know, and I think with Venom, hope springs eternally. Why is that such a bad idea? Why don't we, you know, do X? And it's a horrendous idea. So the voice makes sense to come out of that essence of that strategy. And then I kind of like the, I'm a big hip hop fan. So those Buster Rhymes would be the most emphatic kind of sound from the old school Tribe Called Quest, you know, dragon scenario situation. It's like, oh, yeah, that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. Bane, on the other hand, was a very different story altogether, because there was a multitude of options that presented solution that could have been problematic. And one of them was the introduction of a new villain after the Joker had played so profoundly to the fandom as well, that being accepted as the new villain was going to have to take an element of risk, which was non-negotiable anyway, because, you know, Chris Nolan is such a mastermind, you know, he had a really specific idea. And it laid down the pipe to go, okay, do I do a generic baddie voice, an arch voice I can calculate and create something that's cold and dark and sinister with no light, no color, no fun? Or, you know, Bane is Latinx, technically, so I had to look at that option and think, what's similar? You know, how can I justify this? And I looked at Romany Gypsy in Latin origins, and I found Bartley Gorman, the King of the Gypsies, a bare knuckle fighter. And he has a mellifluous accent, which is all over the place of him being a traveler. There's super sounds of lots of different sounds. And I played that hymn for Chris. And I said, listen, we could get really laughed at here. This could be ridiculous. But it's an interesting sound silhouette. And it might, it might work. Because we have him physically, he's like a gorilla. He's primal, he's dangerous and scary. But he's very florid the way he speaks. He likes his own voice. So perhaps we should add some color. It's just the thought, think about it. And he's tortured as well. He sounds tortured. Yeah. But it also says there's a lilt to it, which is a sort of wax, lyrical, poetic loneliness to it. And I know it's heightened city and slightly camp, but it's all specific to creating a multiple dynamic that people would recognize whether they're laughing at it or whether they go with it. It's like, it's better than being mediocre, you know, and having like people go, man, it wasn't a choice to us. And Chris went for that. So those are the days. So it's a long answer. But those are the kind of thing. Oh, yeah. No idea how fucking cool that answer was. I'm gonna ask you guys really quick just for both of you, because I know movies are shot out of order. So you don't always have control over what the last day is going to be. But when it's the last movie of a trilogy where an actor might be playing this role for the last time, how much thought goes into the last shot, the last call cut, and whether the last film scene was going to be an Eddie moment or a bit of. That was the if you've seen the movie, Eddie lying on the ground, that was the last shot we shot. I wanted to shoot in order. I thought that was really important for this movie, particularly because it's a road trip and it follows an arc. So I have an amazing first AD called Casey Hodenfield, who Casey made miracles happen because it is very difficult, you know, to to shoot in order. And and for the most part, we did. Yeah. Tom, what was that last cut like? It was cold, that concrete floor. You know, I think at the end of the day, there's every day is the same. It has to feel the same. I don't like to say goodbye. I don't like birthdays when people draw attention and bring out a cake. I don't like being clapped off a scene or a set. It's like, you know, Tom Hardy's a rap, you know, that no, no, no, we're not done. It's never over because I think I don't I don't like the finality of that. And I think there will be another day we'll work together. And this is what we do. We're a tribe. And it's like that doesn't need clapping off. I do that for a living. That's cool. I'm happy to be here and just keep it normal. Don't go home. They're probably tired. And I love it. So I don't ever really want to be clapped off or think it's the last scene. It's just, oh, it's over. OK, cool. And then on to the next moment, we'll tell you a little secret, which is we did. Tommy wears an earwig and we did play into the mystic or into his ears and into mine as well as we did that final crane shot. So I know what that means. I definitely had emotions. She forced them on me in the scene. I had to cry. I had to still go to work whilst this thing took very nostalgically seeing me off. But I got it. I know what my friend's doing. As this film taught me to say goodbye for now. That's that's all we'll say. They're pulling me out of here. I love you guys. My dog loves you guys. Seriously. Thank you for having fun with me. I really do appreciate you guys. Thank you. Bye, guys. Good to see you both again. Thank you for taking the time. Hi, how are you? I'm doing so well. I'm so excited to talk with you. I'm going to jump into this. Obviously, I know we have to tiptoe around things, but without getting into spoilers, obviously, this movie does something really fun, which is sort of shows us what happens when the symbiote attaches to other living things and other people. So I'm sort of curious of all the characters you've played in your career, which one would you like to see? What would happen if the symbiote actually attached to them? Oh, man, I think I mean, Keely Jones from Ted Lasso would probably have a pretty kick ass symbiote. They definitely look fly. I would be very scared to see what happened to Luke from Children of Men. Oh, my God. You took it there, man. I wasn't expecting to go there. Tell me the wheels are not turning like I know it's a ridiculous question, but tell me the wheels are not turning. Yeah, it's like, but maybe. Yeah, maybe. I mean, the interesting, you know, by by nature of the multiverse, which we've sort of gotten into over the past few years, we're now obviously having different characters hop universes and into different franchises. So to tell, I'm going to ask another ridiculous question. What sort of conversation happens when Rex walks through one of those circles and gets the chance to meet Mordo? Yeah, interesting. Well, it'd be I don't know. I think that they he but I think Strickland would be very kind of confused by all of this, by all of that. You know, like he's a very logical kind of stringent sort of guy. And I don't know if he would have a lot to say about it. I think he would probably just want to start shooting. I assume they're a threat while also acknowledging that he's very good looking. Yeah, exactly. Once he gets past that, then then he'd stop. Yeah. Juno, I know that these press tours for for Marvel films can be can be really tough because obviously you're trying to tiptoe around things and we don't want to. Yeah, you can't talk about pretty much anything. Exactly right. So I'm going to ask you, what what is tougher, avoiding questions about the final act or avoiding questions about season four of Ted Lasso? I mean, the truth is, Ted Lasso, I actually don't know the answer. So it's not an avoidance. It's a genuine truth of being like, so I actually know nothing other than it sounds like it's going to happen. And so I would say dodging questions about the final act of this has been harder to do because it's rather than just straight up going, no, I normally go like, but sort of make a noise, I guess, which then causes everyone to kind of, huh, what? Oh, no. OK, moving on. Yeah. So I'd say this. So if I were to go back and just watch all the interviews you've done for this press tour, if I hear that noise, that means you were just about to give something away or somebody asked me something that I didn't know how to like politely enough to be like, don't go there. And the thing is, I know exactly what they're fair questions. I know exactly what the questions are asking. But but to your point, there's no point going there. We now live obviously, we're talking about the multiverses. But, you know, a lot of fans obviously are very excited about the potential of maybe one day down the road in another world, maybe seeing Tom's venom take on Spider-Man. But the cool thing about this is that there are now three different Spider-Men that he could go toe to toe with. So in a fun fan way, which Spider-Man do you think would land the first punch? Would it be Toby, Andrew or Tom? I think it's Tom and Tom. I think Tom and Tom combination, I think would be really great if only for the poster, because then you just have to put just Tom once and then just party and just just to save the name on the poster. That's quite cool. See, I'm really I'm trying to help Sonya. I'm trying to help Sony save a couple of bucks. Guys, I could talk with you all day. Seriously, I always love talking with you. And I know that these are can be really tough junkets to do. So I appreciate you having fun with my nerdy questions. Seriously, you guys are really great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good to see you both. Take care. We don't need.