Tom Hardy is hardly an actor who shies from a challenge. He’s bulked up, lost weight, done an entire role muffled under a mask in “The Dark Knight Rises“, tried to revive the cardigan in “Lawless,” done an entire movie in a car in “Locke,” and tried to save “This Means War” from being an irredeemable pile of shit. Coming up, he’ll be donning a Russian accent for “Child 44,” and an Australian one for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and playing Elton John in ‘Rocketman,” but he just started filming today on “Legend,” which might be his greatest task yet.
The film, written and directed by Brian Helgeland, who won an Oscar for writing “L.A. Confidential” before going on to helm “Payback,” “A Knight’s Tale” and “42,” focuses on Ronnie & Reggie Kray, the identical twins who terrorized London’s underworld in the 1960s. The duo were previously the subject of a 1980s biopic starring, curiously, Gary and Martin Kemp from Spandau Ballet, but in Helgeland’s film, the pair will both be played by one actor, and that actor is, almost inevitably, Hardy.
The film’s still mostly under wraps (no casting beyond the lead has been announced yet, though we’ll update when there is), but to mark the start of filming on the Working Title/Studio Canal production, the film’s released the first image of Kray in character(s), and he looks pretty impressive. With shooting now underway, we should be seeing the film around this time next year: perhaps Cannes or one of the fall festivals? Either way, we’re excited to see Hardy face off against himself.