An ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past, Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy) returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father (Nick Nolte), a recovered alcoholic and his former coach, to train him for an MMA tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport. As Tommy blazes a violent path towards the title prize, his brother, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former MMA fighter unable to make ends meet as a public school teacher, returns to the amateur ring to provide for his family. Even though years have passed, recriminations and past betrayals keep Brendan bitterly estranged from both Tommy and his father. ‘Warrior’ opens September 9th in the US, and September 23rd in the UK. Check out what Tom Hardy had to say about the film below.
What do you feel other fight movies, in particular MMA movies, might not be getting quite right that you were able to bring accurately to Warrior?
Tom Hardy: Truth! Martial arts movies which are for the martial artists who like to see different moves and acrobatics and skill sets, those don’t necessary have to have a storyline, or they have a very simple storyline, these guys are very proficiently skilled, from Ong-Bak right through to the old Bruce Lee movies. And then you have things like David Mamet’s Redbelt, with David Mamet we all know he’s a great screenplay writer, and playwright, and a great director. If you like him, you like him. If you hate him, you really hate him. He’s someone who’s into controversy, you know what I mean? That’s David Mamet. He’s also a brown belt. I don’t know if you know this. He’s six years trained and he should be a brown belt by now. Then you’ve got Never Back Down, which we don’t have to go into because I also represent Lionsgate today (laughs). And then you have Gavin O’Connor’s take on the world of Miracle and sports movies. And then you have Pride and Glory, with brothers, Gavin O’Connor’s got a thing about brothers, and a thing about sports, and what he’s brought to his vision of Warrior is like putting a microscope over a sport like MMA and exploring it. He’s actually de-stigmatizing the sport, showing you the athleticism of the sport, the discipline. He also gives you two protagonists in this world, one who’s fighting for country and for self, for reasons towards his own self-centeredness and pain – whatever it is, he’s a Marine. But there’s other reasons why Tommy’s fighting. The fight is within Tommy, and you’ve got someone who’s actually an upstanding member of society, he’s a parent, a teacher, and he’s also an athlete. So it’s the fight for financial reasons.
These are normal people in extreme circumstances with the backdrop of MMA. So in that way when you ask what does Warrior do for the MMA world that others have failed, it’s actually that it’s talking about it as a sport, as opposed to making a kung fu movie or a martial arts movie. It’s like Rocky meets a Kramer vs Kramer, if you like. The great thing about this movie is that Gavin O’Connor has managed to underpin a fight movie with a really strong drama. It caters for two different types of audiences, there’s plenty of fighting and there’s plenty of drama in it.
Without sounding cliche, there’s still something in the movie for everybody….
Tom Hardy: Yeah, there’s something that’s very human about Warrior that brings you out. You’re watching the movie and yeah, there’s fighting, there’s plenty of fighting, there’s a tournament at the end of the movie, but it takes a long time to get to know these people. You see them in a fight situation and you get to know them, so you have two movies. It’s very interesting how Gavin’s set you up with the red car and the blue car. Who are you going to bet on? Who do you want to win? Who do you think will win? But at the end of the day, it’s not really that important. You’ve spent two hours in the movie theatre with two guys you care about, and the dad you care about, even though none of these people are clean. They’ve all got problems, they are all flawed, they are very human, but at least at the end we love them. We kind of care about them. It’s quite emotional. The people close to me that have seen this film, there’s quite a few people that I’ve shown the film, have all felt emotionally moved and touched by the end. It’s not a kung fu film. It really kicks up the skeletons and the dust for everybody. It’s really amazing.
There are two protagonists here in Warrior. How do you think your character will connect with audiences as compared to Joel’s? Why would they root for you?
Tom Hardy: I don’t know why they’d root for Joel, he’s the boring brother (laughs). If you’re lucky like me, your relationship with your brother has resolved itself on the peaceful side of the fence and has stayed there. But if you’re someone who’s got a family that’s all fractured and finding it hard to relate, then that’s a very sad place to be, especially for a lot of people who will spend the rest of their days in that space with a lot of regret and a lot of pain and a lot of projection, which I think this movie is rich with.
I was drawn more to Brendan when I watch it. I watch the movie and it’s not like I want to play Joel’s part to me, because I’m greedy and I want to do that because it’s different. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joel, but at the same time I watch it and I connect much more with the family situation because I have a son, and the family, and the house, and trying to do your best and it not working. Then having someone take away that which is your security, and then you go to any means necessary to protect that. I totally engage……I totally engage. When I see him getting beaten and thrown about the cage, I’m like, ‘No!’ And even though I know the ending of the movie, I cheer every single lock and move. You watch the dynamics of the ballet of the dance and the fighting that’s going on, the choreography, and you can see when he’s losing and when he’s getting the upper hand a bit, you go, ‘Oh, he’s losing it again.’ It really pulls at me because I want him to win.
Tommy, I want him to have a cuddle, man. ‘Come here Tommy, what you need is a big hug. You want your mum back. You can’t have your mum back. You want your family back. You need your faith back and your trust back, and you need your home back.’ There’s things about Tommy, Tommy’s not fighting for anything but to be heard, to get rid of the noise so it’s silent. The noise is in him, the fight is in him when he’s still. The chaos when he’s in the ring, it’s completely on the outside, it is silent on the inside, until he meets his brother and then he falls apart. It’s an intervention in the ring.
How do they film the fight scenes and capture all the dramatic moments needed in order to show that side of the story?
Tom Hardy: It’s a mixture of the choreography. J.J. Perry and his stunt team are nuts about the sport, and wanted it be portrayed realistically and sensibly. It’s very difficult to show you the notes within the notes. This is not just spray and pay. This is very specific, these moves are as specific as a lawyer’s questions in court. Every syllable is connected to another syllable which draws the syntax of a sentence to makes sense. Wants and desires and needs and reactions, they need something from you. So every movement is accounted for and wanted. And then you had Masa Takayanagi in there with a camera. He’s really, really amazing.
What was it like working with Nick Nolte?
Tom Hardy: Well, we were always aware that it was a family movie. It was a drama – for lack of a better word, it was a Greek drama, kind of a naturalistic setting for an American movie. It had an old-school kind of film from the 70’s vibe. I was big a fan of, as we all are, Mean Streets and the old 70′s, American, blue collar movies that were out then. But not just retro, there’s a huge desire keeping it just as cool nowadays, but it’s very difficult to create that. What Gavin had done was that he’d given us a play, like a screenplay which definitely appealed to me. Then we had to find the ability to create the skill set and convince people that we could fight as well as be American. But the huge draw for it was Nick Nolte because he’s from that era.
I grew up watching Nick Nolte movies. Nick Nolte’s face just looks like it’s been carved from the rock of method acting, character acting too. There’s a very specific energy, nature and characteristic that comes from Nick Nolte and the brand. This character, he’s always battling alcoholism and addiction which I think is also an incredibly strong suit for such an actor, and especially for me, and I know for Nick and the director, it was a very important territory to deal with, and it was dealt with artistically. So to have Nick in the film, on a human story level, easing into the genre that we’re trying to work towards, it was brilliant. He taught me an awful lot. You know what you’re in for when Nick turns up on screen, he has such a powerful presence, I admire so much about Nick, he’s fascinating.
What would you say you learned from Joel?
Tom Hardy: Nothing! (laughs) No, an awful lot. There were a lot of skills I picked up. I came back a different man from when I went away to Warrior. I picked up an awful lot. I’m incredibly grateful for what Gavin taught me, Joel Edgerton taught me, and Jace Jeanes my stunt co-ordinator, J.J. Perry the stunt coordinator, Sam Hargrave….. the wholestunt team were incredible, and all the fighters that came in, all the other actors. It was a tremendously, potentially testosterone-fuelled set of men, and it was a potentially testosterone-fuelled environment which turned out not to be that bad at all. What I thought was going to be very intimidating turned out to be an incredible passage of rites. But it was very gentle, very encouraging. And I thank you, Joel, for that as well. I learned a lot from Joel. Joel Edgerton has a tremendous sense of humility and kindness, a genuine kindness. He has a very reliable energy of kindness and warmth, genuine warmth and care.