65th Cannes Film Festival Guy Pierce and Tom Hardy – Lawless
Independent Film Quarterly’s Shawn Lukaszewicz sat down with Guy Pearce and Tom Hardy to talk about their counteractive lead rolls in Lawless directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave.
Independent Film Quarterly (IFQ): Being antagonists in the film, is that the way you have to conduct your relationship while you’re shooting?
Guy Pearce: It’s different for different people. I think we gained a huge amount of respect for each other. On the contrary, you come at an opposite point-of-view. We want the antagonism and dynamic to be real. I want to make sure what I’m giving Tom from Tom’s point-of-view is what is appropriate for him and vice-versa.
Tom Hardy: We’ve been doing this for a while. If you know someone has been practicing for a while then you know there is a mutual respect which is to expect a certain level of athleticism from this person so you go out with your instincts open, aware and awake that this person knows what they are doing if both of us are doing our homework. There was no prejudgment I’m there to entirely support Guy and whatever he needs; and it’s very selfish because while supporting him I look good.
Guy Pearce: And we both realize that.
Tom Hardy: Feed each other.
Guy Pearce: Enablers, I’m an acting enabler. [Laughs.]
Tom Hardy: Acting 101 – there it is. [Laughs.] And it makes sense, right?
IFQ: For building your character, did you research?
Guy Pearce: I didn’t. No, I just relied on the script. The personality that becomes evident within the script. I find it a very difficult thing to explain; the crystallizing of a character. A Nick Cave script is highly insightful. There may be one or two moments that actually make you go ahha now I can completely see. It’s how he puts his coffee cup down after this particular moment that tells me exactly what I lock into.
IFQ: Did you read the book the movie was based on?
Guy Pearce: No. I didn’t. Apparently it is very different in the book so I wanted to stay away from the book.
IFQ: How did you begin to create the look and feel for your character?
Guy Pearce: There were photographs that we used as reference that John Hillcoat supplied from various people from that period.
Tom Hardy: You see those are the extras throughout the film. You look at the film, you look at the casting, the design, the costume of it. The specificity of some of these looks make the movie.
Guy Pearce: There are fascinating people out here in the world, and John has a really great eye for every corner of the image. Whether that’s to do with the hair of the leading character, or as Tom indicates the extras; it’s the whole entire world he wants to create.
IFQ: What kind preparation did you do for your accents?
Tom Hardy: Sometimes an accent doesn’t have to be so specific to land in a territory where we feel the familiar. There’s a certain ability to be free, and yes we must create structure and discipline, but at the same time have the ability to be free within the walls of that. Sometimes an accent may be credible but not accurate, but still be truthful. I can’t tell you exactly whether my accent is genuine or authentic; nor do I really give a shit. [Laughs.] What I care about is whether you identify with the character, if you like him, whether he can get away and still you feel for him. At the end of the day, if he cut somebody’s balls off, would you want to sit in a room with somebody who cut someone’s testicles off?
Guy Pearce: Not while he still had the testicles in his hand. [Laughs.]
Tom Hardy: What makes this film exciting is the ensemble is so exciting and the actors I get to work with.
IFQ: As actors do you find yourselves thinking about personal experiences to help fuel how you act?
Guy Pearce: Sometimes. I don’t feel like I ever need to. I feel like my imagination is enough. I always come back to the script. If reading a script takes me to a place and takes me to an emotional place then its already done. Whether I go, oh should I try and transfer my mother into this story, does that make me feel sadder…
Tom Hardy: She may already be there. [Laughs.]
Guy Pearce: Sometimes you can watch a toilet roll commercial, and it can make you cry. It’s not the toilet roll that is making you cry but some subconscious connection to something that has happened in your past.
Tom Hardy: I actually did a toilet roll commercial and cried [Laughs.]
Guy Pearce: I cried when I heard you were doing it [Laughs.]
IFQ: Was there a favorite interaction between the both of you during the production of Lawless?
Tom Hardy: Guy and I just chilled. We would sit in the makeup trailer and just chat shit.
Guy Pearce: And play angry birds [Laughs.] There are these two angry characters, and they’re just sitting there playing angry birds. [Laughs.] That’s how we connected to our anger.