(no subject)

[apiphile]

So ihavecake said: "Go on then. HARDY."

• the first thing I saw them in

Embarrassingly I don’t strictly remember which. The first that comes to mind is Stuart: A Life Lived Backwards, which of course made me wail like someone had broken the inside of my soul, but I think I may have seen Band of Brothers before that.

• why I like them

A lot of reasons relating both to himself as an actor and himself as a person: as an actor he fucking mutates - he vanishes inside a role like he’s trying to become a whole new species, and he gravitates toward the difficult and the complex - and I have a lot of respect for that. I also like that he isn’t a princess about what roles he takes and is just like “yeah, I gots a kid to feed” and will also happily act in total stinker films but still give his all. You never feel like he’s phoning it in.
As a person - he is damaged. He is so damaged that you can see the cracks forming and merging under the skin, and he is smart and spends so much time dodging around that fact. He seems as much a person made of layers of bad things and self-hatred as anyone can, and he’s surprisingly open and evasive all at once. Physically and psychologically very scarred, very crazy and very self-aware all at once.
Also, dat stare. He has a very intense and slightly crazy stare.

• my favorite role of theirs

Probably Stuart Shorter, with Freddy from The Take coming in second. Both of them were crushing in separate ways, complicated beasts with entire deep, broad sicknesses festering inside them to completely different ends. Neither are “attractive” characters, and Freddy in particular is a monster, but the skill and conviction he brought to those roles was absolutely mind-blowing.

• my least favorite role of theirs

I would say Heathcliff but actually that’s only because he did a really fucking good job of making me hate him, and you’re meant to hate Heathcliff.
So my least favourite role of his - aside from the ones in which he was criminally underused - is Shinzon in Star Trek:Nemesis, because it is an absolute fucking turd of a film, the character is a piss-stinking joke, he deserved a far better big screen debut than that, and the dialogue he’s required to chew his way through is atrocious. That and the direction was criminally rubbish too. Poor Tom.

• a role I’d like to see them in

Billy Prior Oh god this is hard. I do want him to play Prior, I think he would bring exactly the correct things to the role, and I have an icon of him as Billy Prior (photoshopped, of course) and so on, but I also want to stretch him and see how far he’d go. I think he has amazing breadth, and I think his comedic abilities get overlooked in favour of his dramatic ones. So I really, I can’t chooce. But for now: Billy Prior in the Regeneration Triology. And I’d want them to film all three. And I would probably spend most of it crying into my clothing.

• who I’d like them to work with

I want him to do more work with Mark Strong where he gets to interact, and acting-wise I would also like to see him with Derek Jacobi, Paul Bettany (if he can refrain from slapping him this time), Vincent Cassell (again, with more interaction than last time), David Bamber, MOAR ELLEN PAGE.
Directorially I think Nolan certainly knows how to get good work out of him, and I want to see what Julie Taymor would do with him. Hopefully something bonkers. I would say “Guy Ritchie” but he seems to think Ritchie is boring. GUILLERMO DEL TORO NEEDS A GO ON HIM THOUGH.
… also I want to see what would happen if RJDr and Hardy were allowed near each other for an entire filming. Possibly the end of the world as we know it.

First of the repayments is attack_womb's, an answer/companion to her coerced intimacy:

The Girl With The Soft Carapace

Before I met her I thought they came
with only two types of packaging;
the ones who bleed as soon as you look at 'em
(leaking from the eyes, love from their mouths,
pretty soon the whole stinking affair is
heading swiftly south - I don't mean fucking,
I just mean the fucking affair is
over).

and the ones with the armour so tight
you can't even finger 'em without
scarring your soul on the sharp slots
where the plates join.

I thought she was one of them,
you know, the ones with the overlapping scales -
insert the crowbar between the cracks

(i love you
i love you)

and pry them loose;

boom

you love me too.

She had a soft shell, and the words sank and bounced;
there was no seam; just "thanks".

"I like you a lot".

Leashing the crowbar to a stronger weight
violence and language, how else
do you strip the sheeting
from an over-armoured car -

i love you
(and an open hand
on the cheek; soft as a hurricane,
slow as lightning, a storm
to shake the words out)
i love

But she had a soft shell
and there was no echo.

I will love the words out of you
on the tips of my fists
I will. I will it.

She dented and rebounded;
no echoes,
no reverb,
no reaction,
to the stinging thorn
where "I love you" pricks;
just this:

I know.