Tom Hardy: Becoming Bronson

Vertigo Films

 

In indie flick Bronson, the biopic of Britain’s most notorious prisoner, RocknRolla actor Tom Hardy plays the role of the violent inmate Charles Bronson, who received a seven year prison sentence for armed robbery on a Post Office in 1974, in which he got away with £26.

35 years later, and having been freed twice for a total of just 68 days, the former bare-knuckle boxer is still in solitary confinement thanks to his various assaults on prison staff, rooftop protests and hostage-taking while inside.
Here, Hardy tells AskMen.com exactly how he made the physical transformation into Britain’s most dangerous prisoner.

My fascination with Bronson

Charles Bronson’s character is completely crazy. He’s been through such incredible and tragic stuff and in many cases he’s asked for it. He was so abused, yet abusive. He was dangerous, mostly because he was unpredictable, and he was rageful. Now at the age of 55, he’s locked in a different time zone to many prisoners. This is a guy who’s in a maximum security prison with murderers but he’s not one himself; Bronson is an old school guy with old school values who has no time for the likes of rapists or paedophiles. It's no wonder he calls himself the man behind the iron mask.

How I worked out for the role

When it came to conditioning my body for the role of Charles Bronson there was no official regime: I did very non-specific exercises such as  press ups, push ups, abs work and resistance training with the help of my boy Pnut, who is 16 stone of pure muscle and also an ex-US Marine. Essentially I was using him as my machine; he was like a walking gym. 

 

My approach was to do a lot of repetitions in order to send messages to my muscles: this helps them start to grow in a way that you can’t make them in the gym. To achieve dense muscle, you need a specific kind of training. Also, to “become” Charlie Bronson I had to quickly put a lot of weight quickly on my forearms, chest and neck. By the time I’d finished, my legs looked like those of a stork in comparison to the top half of my body.

Changing my eating habits

I’ll admit to you guys my normal diet is usually terrible: I tend to get up, have a sandwich and then realise I’m going to pass out. Normally l'll have loads of coffee (it used to be cigarettes) and then eat a big meal before going to sleep, which is obviously not good for my metabolism. It’s good to have my trainer Pnut making me shakes and making sure my energy levels are kept high.

Eating my way into shape

I had five weeks to make the transition into Britain’s most dangerous criminal and it was a race against the clock: We didn’t have any time to waste, so I started eating and my arse very quickly got very fat. For Bronson, I put on about 7lbs a week -- with no steroids. In the end I’d put on about 2 and a half stone by eating chicken and rice, which was my staple diet throughout the day. Then I’d have a pizza, Häagen-Dazs and Coca-Cola: So not good stuff, but I had to put weight on. I needed to put a layer of fat on my body, because Bronson when he was younger was a big guy, a brawler. My diet was lenient as we weren’t going for the Bruce Lee look and we weren’t looking for the cut.

My approach for Bronson was very different to my nutrition and diet regime for Stuart: A Life Backwards, when I was doing three to seven miles running a day and I had all these supplements and was eating heaps of vegetables to keep weight down.

first impressions

Initially Charles Bronson was very disappointed when he saw me. He said “This kid will never be able to play me.” I just told him, “Don’t worry Charlie I’ll fix it.”  When I came back two weeks later he was thoroughly impressed with what he saw. His sister had been telling him good things about the way I'd been doing his voice and the way I moved like him, but his concern was the physicality of my portrayal of him, but I think I did a good job in the end.