They say that the cream always rises to the top and that seems to be the case for Tom Hardy. Having plied his trade in an inferior Star Trek sequel (Nemesis) and a left-of-mainstream biopic (Bronson) he is now picking up bigger and bigger profile roles. With an utterly impressive co-lead performance under his belt for Warrior and an eye-catching supporting role in Nolan’s Inception, Hardy now has The Dark Knight Rises and the altogether very different This Means War for us in 2012.
Bigger and more prominent lead roles were always going to come his way eventually and so now proves to be the case, with news that Hardy is set to play one of the most iconic American gangsters of all time, Al Capone. Cicero, potentially a trilogy showing the rise, reign and fall of Al Capone, has been penned by Walon Green, with David Yates looking at re-writes before taking up the director’s reins. In contrast to Hardy’s exacting physical preparation for Bronson, Warrior and Batman, he has been doing more cerebral research for Cicero, boning up on the classic films of the Warner Bros gangster cycle:-
“I’ve been working with Warner Bros., watching their gangster films — the ones with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. The idea isn’t to remake those films but to get a flavour of them as we explore Capone’s career as a racketeer. The idea at the moment is of doing a trilogy of films, but nothing is set. Everyone is just talking and exploring.”
Hardy has apparently caught up with “The Petrified Forest”, “The Public Enemy”, “Little Caesar” and “The Roaring Twenties”, an utterly worthwhile exercise regardless, but especially in order to get under the skin of Prohibition-era racketeering. Whether he will follow in the footsteps of Robert De Niro (The Untouchables) and Rod Steiger (Al Capone) and put on a bit of girth for the role remains to be seen. WB want to hold their horses a little, waiting to see how Hardy comes off in TDKR before formally greenlighting this one, though for my money he has given all of the evidence he needs to of his leading-man credentials, with a reworking of Mad Max on his schedule for 2012 as well.
We will let you know as this one develops further.
Source: Indie Wire
