In other news related to Tom Hardy, “Huh?!”
You may be surprised when you read this headline if you watch him in Venom or Mad Max: Fury Road. We understood in words and didn’t have a problem with those American accents. You sat in the movies, and heard Tom Hardy speak, so what’s the big deal, right? Tom Hardy is a man of many voices, as you will discover in the movie in the featured image, Legend. Well, the guy is British (from the artsy district of Hammersmith in London). That’s why he’s often known to use a cockney accent.
Tom Hardy’s career is impressive when you see the different films where he’s been featured and the many voices he has used in those films. (More on that later.)
If you’re a younger cinephile, you do this. If you’re an older parent, you do as well. The newest fad in entertainment is the widespread use of subtitles. In case you haven’t noticed, there is a proclivity for home streamers to enjoy any movie with subtitles. Not for accessibility reasons, but as a guide in case they weren’t sure what was being said. So, research firm Preply asked the masses a silly question: “What actor is the most difficult to understand?” And Tom Hardy was the runaway choice pick.
Why? Well, that’s a more detailed story.
“The hell did he just say?”
It seems the kids today fancy subtitles with TV or movie choices–even when the movie is in their native tongue.
That quandary got Preply thinking about the reason behind it and how this popular choice came to be:
- 62% of Americans use subtitles more on streaming services than on regular TV.
- 57% watch content in public; 74% of Gen Z do so.
- 55% say it is harder to hear the dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be.
- 50% of Americans watch content with subtitles most of the time.
Okay, we understand that people enjoy the leisure of subtitles in a film, but not everyone has the same reason.
- 72% use them because the sound is muddled
- 61% say accents are hard to understand
- 29% select subtitles because they are watching quietly at home
- 27% of respondents do it because it helps them stay focused on the screen
- 18% want to learn a new language
That second one is why Tom Hardy takes the grand champion bid in this survey. Yet, that may be on purpose, which is why this survey may not be so fair.
Tom Hardy: Voice Artist Extraordinaire
You may not know this, but Tom Hardy is quite the chameleon with the diverse roles he portrays. The above picture is from one of his earlier films, Bronson, named after the UK’s most violent prisoner in its history. It is a fascinating watch and shows you the depths to which Hardy will go to nail a role. Man, it’s that twisted and good.
However, if you don’t have subtitles, you will quickly learn where the rewind button is located. Hardy sounds like he has a potato in his mouth the entire time. Watch another film, Legend, where Hardy plays twin brothers who were 1960s UK gangsters, Reggie and Ronald Kray. They sound completely different, and Hardy is amazing. Then, there was Bane and whatever the hell that voice was doing. Many watches of The Dark Knight Rises thought it could sound mixing issues.
In Lawless, Tom Hardy nails a redneck drawl. Conversely, in Venom, he plays both a West Coast dude and a gruesome monster–again, both different sounds, both mesmerizing Tom Hardy.
The Revenant and Inception, Warrior to Taboo–go ahead, put Tom Hardy in a box. The guy will break right out of it, beginning with his silver tongue and blessed voice box. Critics have found it difficult to pinpoint his accent or phonetics because the guy makes voices up for every character he plays.
Geography does not help with creating a voice. And he could care less if the extra work is intelligible. What matters is the art of developing the backstory of a complex character. It’s not the first time Hardy has been hurled under a bus for being hard to understand. Vulture smacked him around in 2018 and even in North Texas (my hood), a list ranking all Tom Hardy movies based on the complexity of understanding Tom Hardy speak. (Okay, that was funny.)
That’s Tom Hardy’s gift. He is an exceptional voice actor, and for his adept skill, he gets this bogus moniker of “Hollywood’s Most Incomprehensible Actor.” It’s crap. If you ask this cinephile, where was this survey when Arnold Schwarzenegger first got into film? Better yet, someone holler at Brad Pitt for his role in Snatch. Good Lord! Does someone have a court reporter handy?!
Since he saw ‘Dune’ in the $1 movie theater as a kid, this guy has been a lover of geek culture. It wasn’t until he became a professional copywriter, ghostwriter, and speechwriter that he began to write about it (a lot).
From the gravitas of the Sith, the genius of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, or the gluttony of today’s comic fan, SPW digs intelligent debate about entertainment. He’s also addicted to listicles, storytelling, useless trivia, and the Oxford comma. And, he prefers his puns intended.
