‘What on earth are you on about? You want to know about my sexuality? WHY?’: Tom Hardy Trolled Journalist Like a Boss Who Asked About His Sexuality In Interview
Tom Hardy is a badass and everyone knows it. He comes across as one of the least superficial stars in the industry who has, at the same time, wowed with his acting caliber time and again. He has got quite the filmography to his credit, but that is not all that he’s known for. He is also notorious for his no-f*cks-given attitude, and the fact that he never beats around the bush unnecessarily.
Along the same line, he once shut down a reporter’s line of questioning on his sexuality, because he found it “inelegant and humiliating”.
“What on earth are you on about?”
Back in 2015, Tom Hardy was at the Toronto Film Festival promoting his mob biopic film Legend, where he played the character of brothers: Reggy Kray, a heterosexual man, and his twin, Ronnie, who is an openly bisexual man. It was at a press conference there that the English actor was questioned by a reporter from an LGBT news outlet Daily Xtra. The reporter asked,
“In the film, your character Ronny is very open about his sexuality. But given interviews you’ve done in the past… um your own sexuality seems a bit more ambiguous. Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk to… media about their sexuality?”
Also Read: Tom Hardy’s Bane: Hidden Facts About That Make The Character Even More Special
Hardy’s first reaction was a confused, “What on earth are you on about?” which caused a general uproar of laughter among the audience. The Venom actor asked the reporter to clearly state the question again, to which they repeated, “I was wondering if you find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality?”
Hardy calmly answered, “I don’t find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality… um are you asking me about my sexuality?”
The reporter replied with an unsure, “Sure,” which Hardy answered with a confused, “why? …Thank you,” thus putting an end to the reporter’s ‘umms’ and that super awkward exchange.
You don’t talk sh*t with Tom Hardy
The line of questioning seemed irksome to Tom Hardy, who had made it clear many years ago that he was heterosexual. The Mad Max: Fury Road actor later talked to Entertainment Weekly about the whole debacle. He said,
“That really, really annoyed me… It was just the inelegance of being asked in a room full of people … Now I’m happy to have a conversation, a discussion, at a reasonable time about anything. I’m confident in my own sexuality, and I’m also confident in my own being and talking about any issue you want to talk about it. But there is a time and a place for that.”
Hardy made it clear that he felt that the line of questioning put forth to him was not made with the best of intentions.
“I found it very humiliating for somebody to decide that on his dime and his time, to openly and inelegantly pursue a line of questioning which I could only sense … was zeroing in on a reaction from me that would become a topic of discussion that had nothing to do really, really to do with what was there… I’m quite sensitive, and I feel like I’ve let people down for something that I actually didn’t ask for, for something that’s important to a lot of people. Should I come out of the closet when I’m not in one? I ought to maybe come out of the closet, even though that’s a lie, to do the right thing… Or, if I say no, then I’m homophobic? Bless [the reporter] … but at the same time, it left me feeling like I have to do something about that … Whose business is it anyway, and isn’t that the point?”
This wasn’t the first time Tom Hardy was his honest straightforward self in the public and it certainly won’t be the last either. His fans lauded him for calmly shutting down the intrusive reporter as well, without being rude or uncouth.
Watch the video here:
Source: YouTube, The Guardian
