Tom Hardy’s acting tenure kicked off in the early 2000s as he launched his filmography with such titles as “Black Hawk Down,” “Band of Brothers” (on which you likely forgot he had a role), and the film where Sir Patrick Stewart avoided him on set, “Star Trek: Nemesis.” Before making the jump to screens big and small, though, Hardy’s aspirations of making it big in the music world came first and foremost. Long before adopting his secret Frankie Pulitzer stage name, he was known as Tommy No. 1, and he worked on a mixtape using that name at the tail end of the 1990s.
Alongside Eddie Too Tall, real name Edward Tracy, Hardy assembled the album “Falling on Your Arse in 1999.” Unfortunately, as Hardy admitted in a 2011 interview with BBC, he didn’t feel the material was strong enough to release. “Because I come from a nice middle-class neighborhood it was a very hard sell. And I wasn’t very good,” he said, recalling that he at least managed to score a recording deal and connect with some pretty influential names in the industry. Of course, some of Hardy’s songs have since made their way online, allowing fans the chance to hear his long-dormant work at long last.
Evidently, Tom Hardy’s love for rap hasn’t gone away, even as he’s hit it big in Hollywood. Perhaps someday he’ll lean more heavily into it, shedding the pseudonyms and secrecy to fully embrace the art form he has pursued for so long.
