Plenty of actors would be understandably intimidated when playing their first major role without having to worry about acting in Patrick Stewart’s shadow. Tom Hardy would later tell Total Film Magazine, “I was terrified. Every day on that set, I was terrified – which worked for the character anyway.” Hardy added, “You can’t hide that, the camera will pick it up. I was genuinely out of my depth.” Expanding on that sentiment in a BBC interview, the actor emphasized that this had been his first experience working for an established franchise, not to mention his first time working in Hollywood, adding, “So I was terrified of failure.”
His nervousness was hard to hide, as Stewart observed in “The Fifty-Year Mission.” “It’s not just that it was a large role, but he had to carry the weight of the antagonist in a ‘Star Trek’ movie,” Steward said. “Major scenes of dialogue, complex emotions.”
Director Stuart Baird felt this pressure worked in service of the film, noting that Hardy was intimidated by Stewart due to his respect for the actor. “That played on the vulnerability side of it,” Baird said.
