Patrick Stewart says it gives him “nothing but pleasure” that Tom Hardy has had such a successful career. However, when Stewart filmed 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis with the actor, he thought it would be the end of the eventual Mad Max: Fury Road star’s career.
According to Insider, in Stewart’s brand-new memoir Making It So, the actor looked back at making the “particularly weak” film opposite then newbie actor Hardy, who played an evil clone of Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard.
Stewart recalls, “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,” Stewart explains.
The Picard star adds, “He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him.”
When his role wrapped, Hardy left without any niceties, and Stewart recalls telling Trek co-stars Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes, “And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.”
Hardy, of course, became a superstar, landing roles in Inception, The Dark Knight Rises and the hit Venom movies. He’ll be seen next onscreen in The Bikeriders.
Stewart says, “It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong.”
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