The interesting thing about some of Tom Junod‘s more colorful observations about Tom Hardy in the current Esquire (i.e., that he’s emotionally intense, has “taken swings at directors” and duked it out with Shia LaBeouf, that Mad Max: Fury Road costar Charlize Theron found him “weird and scary and wanted him kept away from her”) is that he radiates a Zen-like calm in Locke. The film “mostly works because of Steven Knight’s superior script and Hardy’s quiet, authoritative, carefully phrased performance…his best yet, I feel,” I wrote on 4.8. I ran into Hardy two or three years ago at the Four Seasons — he’s not a day-at-the-beach type but he’s no bullshitter and is basically cool.
