Tom Hardy - Best Of British

He's a reluctant celebrity, but this intense actor exudes total star quality.

Part-charming, part-intense, Tom Hardy is as complex as the characters he plays. The British hunk takes his work awfully seriously, although he’s also the first to admit he’s been a bit of ‘dick’ along the way, too.

But who doesn’t love a bad boy? Particularly one who’s taken their beloved dog to a movie premiere, is not ‘remotely ashamed’ about his pre-fame Myspace photos – ‘especially the one of me in my underpants, which is a glorious photo of a man in his natural habitat – and counts Prince Harry (aka ‘a f---ing legend’) as a mate.

Tom also happens to be one of the UK’s most successful exports. If being awarded the title Commander of the Order of the British Empire wasn’t enough, the 41-year-old’s been immortalised in wax at Madame Tussauds, too. And last year, Glamour UK named him the Sexiest

Man of 2018. Edward Thomas Hardy is seriously hot property!

STRUGGLE STREET

So hot, he nabbed his first acting gig in Band of Brothers before he graduated from drama school, and Black Hawk Down shortly followed.

Despite kicking off his career in two huge productions, that stellar beginning didn’t happen for Tom – who found himself on struggle street in his teens, even though he grew up in middle class comfort as the only child of his writer dad Edward and artist mum Anne. ‘I grew up in the neighbourhood being a dick,’ says the London native, who got caught with a friend in a stolen Mercedez-Benz with a firearm, was expelled from school and struggled with alcoholism and hard drugs from the age of 13.

In 2003, at the age of 25, reality bit and the former addict cleaned up his act.

‘I’ve been sober longer than I’d been drinking now. It’s a nice place to be,’ the Venom actor reveals.