Tom Hardy based his ‘Venom’ on 3 unlikely people, including Woody Allen

Sony
Pictures

• Actor Tom Hardy told Esquire that he based his “Venom”
  performance on writer and director Woody Allen, UFC fighter
  Conor McGregor, and rapper Redman.
• Hardy said he didn’t tell the studio, Sony, about his
  inspirations: “You don’t say s— like that to the
  studio.”
• He said he was inspired by Allen’s “tortured
  neurosis and all the humor that can come from that.”

Tom Hardy found unusual inspiration in three completely different
people for his performance in “Venom,” which hits theaters later
this year: controversial writer and director Woody Allen, UFC
fighter Conor McGregor, and the rapper Redman.

Hardy plays troubled reporter Eddie Brock in the movie, who
becomes the anti-hero Venom after an alien symbiote latches on to
him. The character is a classic Spider-Man villain who the
studio, Sony, is giving the solo treatment. Hardy revealed to
Esquire in a profile published
Tuesday that he based his performance on those three, which he
said he never told Sony about.

“You don’t say s— like that to the studio,” Hardy
said.

Esquire described Hardy’s acting process as “using
personalities, both real and fictive, as lodestars toward which
he guides his portrayal.” For “Venom,” Hardy plays a character
with colliding personalities, which turned him toward three
unlikely figures to guide him.

In Allen, who
has been accused by his adopted daughter of sexual assault,
Hardy said he was inspired by his “tortured neurosis and all the
humor that can come from that”; in McGregor, the “überviolence
but not all the talking”; and he described Redman as “out of
control, living rent-free in his head.”

You can watch the full “Venom” trailer below for a peak at
Hardy’s performance. “Venom” comes to theaters October 5.