Tom Hardy believes his sexuality is not a topic that should be discussed during a press conference. Hardy shut down a reporter from a LGBT publication who brought up the subject at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday.
Tom Hardy, 37, has become a big player in the movie industry in recent years. Hardy delivered stellar performances in films like Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dark Knight Rises and The Drop. As usual, this success has brought more scrutiny regarding his private life and past statements that he made.
The English talent does not seem to be ready to let people in the media invade his privacy. A reporter from the Daily Xtra found this out the hard way when he decided to ask the London Road star about his sexuality at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) over the weekend. Hardy was at the event to promote his new movie, Legend, in which he plays Ronald and Reginald Kray, English gangsters from the 1950s and 1960s, who were bisexuals.
The characters in the crime thriller led reporter Graeme Coleman to ask the following question:
“In the film, your character Ronnie is very open about his sexuality. But given interviews you’ve done in the past your own sexuality seems a bit more ambiguous. Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk to media about their sexuality?”
Hardy answered with:
“What on Earth are you on about?”
The Child 44 actor, who is married to English actress Charlotte Riley, 33, added:
“I don’t find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality. Are you asking me about my sexuality?”
Riley is pregnant with the couple’s first child together. Hardy is already the father of one son from his relationship with Rachael Speed.
The awkwardness in the room did not stop the journalist from trying to dig a little deeper. Coleman continued:
“Umm, sure.”
The exchange ended on a resounding “Why?” The movie star also said, “Thank you.”
Most commenters sided with the actor saying that someone’s sexuality is not for public consumption. However, Hardy is the one, who opened the Pandora box in 2008, before he became a huge star, when he opened up about experimenting sexually in his youth. Back then, he told gay British magazine Attitude:
As a boy? Of course I have. I’m an actor for fuck’s sake. I’m an artist. I’ve played with everything and everyone. But I’m not into men sexually. I love the form and the physicality but the gay sex bit does nothing for me. In the same way as a wet vagina would turn someone else into a lemon-sucking freak. To me it just doesn’t compute now I’m into my 30s and it doesn’t do it for me and I’m done experimenting.
Update September 18:
Hardy addresses the controversy in a new interview with The Daily Beast. He shared:
“There should be elegant ways to approach any topic, and there’s a time and place to approach anything and have a good, common sense conversation about anything. If you knew me as a friend, then sure, we’d talk about anything. But that was a public forum, and for someone to inelegantly ask a question that seemed designed entirely to provoke a reaction, and start a topic of debate… It’s important destigmatizing sexuality and gender inequality in the workplace, but to put a man on the spot in a room full of people designed purely for a salacious reaction? To be quite frank, it’s rude,” he stresses. “If he’d have said that to me in the street, I’d ave said the same thing back: ‘I’m sorry, who the —- are you?'”
The European actor added:
“I’m just a man. And I’m just a man doing a job. I’m not a role model for anyone, and you’re asking me something about my private life in a room full of people. … It’s not about what he and his publication stands for, none of that is offensive, and on the contrary, it’s very admirable, and an important issue. But how I was asked was incredibly inelegant, and I just thought it was disrespectful and counterproductive to what he stands for. I think everybody is entitled to the right to privacy. I’m under no obligation to share anything to do with my family, my children, my sexuality — that’s nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t see how that can have anything to do with what I do as an actor, and it’s my own business. I know who I am.”
What are your thoughts on Tom Hardy’s reaction?
Thank you! I really appreciate it. Not everyone agrees, but that's just how the world works haha. https://t.co/bP1rf7OAf7
— Graeme Coleman (@Instagraeme_) September 14, 2015
Great points! Unfortunately nerves got the best of me by that point.. https://t.co/URAi7yfX4X
— Graeme Coleman (@Instagraeme_) September 14, 2015
