Tom Hardy, an actor known for his roles as Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road
, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, and Eames in Inception, has a long history of supporting women.
In an interview with HeyUGuys, Hardy answered questions about the 2014 film The Drop, a mystery/crime thriller about a man named Bob Saginowsky who finds himself in the middle of a robbery gone wrong.
During the interview, Hardy touched on the fact that films in Hollywood should include better roles for women. He mentions that we need to give women stronger and more well-rounded roles.
“Writing for women in films could be much more,” he said, “there could be much better material out there and it could be advanced a little more, especially today. It’d be interesting to take the crime genre and replace men’s parts and have women play them. And not even question it. Just go.”
In a guest piece for Interview Magazine, Hardy had a chance to interview actor Matthias Schoenaerts about his life. During the interview, Hardy asked Schoenaerts what he thought about the way women are portrayed in films today.
“I identify with having strong, powerful female influences in my life.” Hardy said. He went on to ask, “Do you think that women are fairly represented in screenplays, film, TV, and theater today? Or do you think there should be better parts for women than just girlfriend and wife or lover? Because I’m bored with that.”
Schoenaerts agreed with Hardy saying, “Absolutely. I think there’s massive room for improvement there. Of course, every now and then, you get a film that portrays women in a much richer way than they used to be. But they’re still too rare.” Hardy added, “There’s a long way to go on that, but I do believe that the time is now.”
After Mad Max: Fury Road was released, Hardy told Metro that he did not play the main character in the movie.
“Mad Max is not actually in the driver’s seat in this movie. It’s about time you had better female leads in action movies. This is not a feminist argument; it’s a person-hood situation. This is how we ought to reflect the times — not so much strong women, but just people.”
He continued, saying, “He’s a smart man, [director George Miller], so what he’s doing is reflecting the times as well as pioneering at the same time. And…it’s very clear that actually, right down to the shoulder pad on her left arm, [Charlize Theron] is the female protagonist of this movie.”
Hardy also has a habit of shutting down sexist questions. In 2015, Hardy attended the Cannes Press Conference for Fury Road where he was asked, “As you were reading the script, did you ever think, ‘Why are all these women in here? I thought this was supposed to be a man’s movie?’” Hardy answered, “No. Not for one minute.”
Featured Image by Sam on Flickr
Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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