Hardy's plans to return to school

By Alison Smith
BBC News education reporter

Tom Hardy says school did not encourage his acting ambition

Actor Tom Hardy is barely off the small screen - starring in series ranging from The Virgin Queen to Sweeney Todd, while his blockbuster CV includes Black Hawk Down and Layer Cake.

So it is all the more to his credit that the 28-year-old plans to return to school to encourage aspiring actors who need their dreams taken seriously - as he once did.

He is just back from South Africa, where he has been filming The Flood with Robert Carlyle, and he talks of drawing inspiration from the community-oriented South African DJ Ready D, who uses his art to inspire and mobilise young South Africans to vote.

"I love my craft and I don't like to see it abused," he says. "But I have to give it away to keep it - in doing so I can learn it again."

He adds: "Many would give their left arm to be in my position. Therefore I think I should give my left arm.

"I can only look after my corner, and that's what I'm doing, as people have done for me. It keeps me balanced and learning useful things."

People would ask me if I wanted to act in my spare time, or if I didn't want to become something else to pay the bills

The school system did little to encourage his ambitions to become an actor.

He admits he "couldn't really get to grips with school work" and had few career possibilities by the time he left.

"But acting was seen as a soft and unrealistic option," he says.

"People would ask me if I wanted to act in my spare time, or if I didn't want to become something else to pay the bills.

"But no, I didn't."

Now in demand for a range of roles, he admits his life was "the worst-case scenario" before he began his one-year foundation course at Richmond Drama School eight years ago.

Floundering, with very supportive but anxious parents, he knew he wanted to be an actor and was excited by the challenge, but did not quite know how to get there and had no focus.

His mother, who was studying art at Richmond Adult Community College, came across their one-year drama school access course.

Make or break

"I really needed that string to my bow," Hardy says. "It was a make or break year - I didn't get into acting school the first time round and this course was the stepping stone for me."

It taught him "all the basics which you also learn at acting school": how to walk, transfer ideas to an audience, how to speak clearly, sing and dance, but perhaps most importantly, to strip a script down to the syllable and get down to the basics of what is being said.

This latter skill is the one he seems to keep most to heart.

"No matter how complicated things get, you have to strip them down to make them simple as ABC."

What he also learnt at Richmond, and subsequently on his three-course at the Drama Centre in London, was "a structured routine and not to get wrapped up in my ego".

"In the beginning it was all about me," he says. "I was so terrified about not getting work that I trod on everybody's hands because I had to prove I was an actor. I got it wrong."

He appears to have undergone quite a transformation.

Do your homework, and dreams can come true

Along with his own acting, writing and directing, he now aims to transfer his skills to future generations, mobilise actors and nurture and protect his craft.

The craft, which he talks about with passion, is "so much more important than ego and fame".

He now runs a forum with fellow actor Robert Delamere to "grab hold of those who may have slipped through the net" and give out-of-work actors an opportunity to practise their skills, share ideas and keep in contact with professionals.

It is incumbent upon him to build solidarity with professionals, he feels, to give back some of the opportunities which have been given to him.

"I'm fortunate enough to be working back-to-back, but for every one of us, there are 100 out of work," Tom says.

"I benefited hugely from contact with professionals at Richmond. It was a bit like having a soldier to come in and tell you what weapons to use - they told us how things were done in the industry."

Formerly fairly work-shy by his own admission, he talks about now seeing the fruits of his labour.

And his advice to others is "Do your homework, and dreams can come true."