This renowned English actor and producer is well-known for his dedicated performances for any character he plays. But can Tom Hardy sing?
Tom Hardy has sang for some roles, but would not describe himself as a singer. Hardy was a rapper and hip hop producer for a short while but quickly decided to focus on acting.
Read on below to find out more about Tom Hardy’s singing and brief musical career, as well as how he was able to become a singing sensation.
Tommy No 1
Tom Hardy starred in the 2015 musical mystery and crime drama movie London Road along with Olivia Colman and Anita Dobson. The film is a thriller based on the interviews from the Steve Wright killings in Ipswich, Suffolk.
Hardy plays Mark, a mysterious cab driver. Hardy uses his signature husky voice in some of the musical film’s songs, the lyrics of which are all taken from real interviews set to music.
In 2013, Hardy had signed to play Elton John in the biographical musical film Rocketman but later dropped out of the film because of his troubles with singing. “I’m not a singer,” Hardy said.
“I have no idea really. I’m really trying because of Rocketman but it’s hard to open my mouth in that way.” He also said that the role was pretty far out of his comfort zone.
“I’m not really drawn towards singing and musicals and that stuff. I did some rap when I was a kid but I’m somebody’s dad now so it wouldn’t be too cool to crack that out!”
Hardy is referring to his early 20s when he went by the moniker Tommy No 1 and worked with his friend Ed Tracy, whose stage name was Eddie Too Tall. The two released an 18-track mixtape called “Falling On Your Arse in 1999.”
The tape includes Hardy rapping over the theme from The Godfather, and a track called “People Like to Boogie,” which features the lyrics “I wanna be on the TV, so people can see me.”
Tracy revealed in 2018 that he had published the tape which was written and produced in his room after Hardy asked him about it. “Tom asked me whether I still had the album kicking about in the loft. Lo and behold, here it is in all its rawness, just as it sounded then.”
This post on Twitter, featuring a radio interview with Hardy’s co-star in Venom, Riz Ahmed, they talk about Hardy’s rapping days. Ahmed is also an actor and rapper who went by Riz MC.
“It’s funny because the whole period of time that I’ve known Tom, he’s been threatening to drop an album. It’s like, this is the longest tease of any album drop in rap history at this point,” Ahmed laughed.
“You know, the first time I ever met Tom… we had this acting job together in 2007, and he just went stone-cold serious and looked at me and he goes, ‘I rap too, you know.’ And I was like, alright, cool man, cool.”
“I was like, ‘Send me some stuff,’ and he was like ‘I will, I will, I will,’” Ahmed said. “He’s still never sent me anything.”
Dubsmash Stardom
Though his rapping never officially took off, Hardy quickly became a lip-syncing star when after joining the app Dubsmash and recording himself mouthing along to famous songs.
One of his videos even made it back to the original artist, as 50 Cent put Hardy’s video on his Instagram account in this post. “Those days were when we went crazy,” Hardy explained. “We were doing The Revenant, and there’d come a point where we were looking for apps… anything that the team could do… to keep ourselves entertained.”
Check out the YouTube video below to watch Tom Hardy talk about how he became a Dubsmash star and some of his best Dubsmash videos.