Tom Hardy says his oldest son, 16-year-old Louis, likes to give him constructive criticism about his acting performances in movies.
Though the teenager doesn’t usually reveal to his 46-year-old movie star dad whether he likes his films or not — “I mean, he wouldn’t ever tell me,” Hardy recently told E! Online — the father and son do have a discourse about ways he can improve his craft.
“He’s 16, you know what I mean? He told me what I’m getting right or wrong,” Hardy said.
“But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t back me or support me or look out for me,” he continued, “and offer information that’s useful in order to be better with what I do.”
Hardy added: “It comes from a position of like, ‘Look, you know this.’… He deconstructs what I’m doing like a peer would.”
The Mad Max: Fury Road star will soon appear in Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, out June 21 from Focus Features.
He plays Johnny, the founder of the Vandals, a fictionalized version of a real biker gang in 1960s Chicago. The film follows the aging Johnny’s struggle to convince his younger protegé Benny (Austin Butler) to take over the club as his successor. Meanwhile, Benny’s wife Cathy (Jodie Comer) competes with Johnny for Benny’s attention.
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Other cast members of The Bikeriders include Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water), Boyd Holbrook (Narcos), Mike Faist (Challengers), Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), Damon Herriman (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Happy Anderson (Mindhunter), Karl Glusman (Civil War), Toby Wallace (Finestkind), Emory Cohen (The OA), and Beau Knapp (Roadhouse).
The film is directed by Jeff Nichols, known for 2012’s thriller Mud (2012) starring Matthew McConaughey, 2011’s Take Shelter starring Shannon, Nichols’ frequent collaborator who also starred in his other films Midnight Special (2016) and Shotgun Stories (2007).
But although Hardy does a lot of motorcycle riding in The Bikeriders, he said his son Louis isn’t interested in riding at all.
“They’re too noisy,” he said. “My eldest, his friend hurt his foot really badly—tore his foot off wearing substandard footwear on a bike. So, he’s very like, ‘Don’t ride bikes.'”
Hardy shares Louis with his ex-girlfriend Rachel Speed, and has two younger kids with his wife, Charlotte Riley, whom he married in 2014.
In addition to George Miller’s 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road and The Bikeriders, Hardy is also known for starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2015 Western-thriller The Revenant; playing twin gangsters in Brian Helgeland’s 2015 crime-thriller Legend; starring in Marvel’s Venom franchise as the titular villain; and playing London gangster Alfie Solomons in Steven Knight’s period crime drama series Peaky Blinders alongside Cillian Murphy.
Main Image: Tom Hardy speaking at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con International for Venom at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.