Bond and Bane, Mamma Mia! and Mad Max: Pierce Brosnan and Tom Hardy make a somewhat unlikely double act, but the pair have teamed up in MobLand, the ten-part Paramount+ drama that’s already been watched by nearly nine million viewers globally and is set to conclude this week.
The series is set in a dimly lit and frequently cloudy present-day London, where mobsters tell their henchmen to “call the Maltese and tell them there’s a gap in the market on the brown” and nightclubs are seemingly only allowed to play the Prodigy. In other words, it’s a gangster series directed by Guy Ritchie.
Brosnan, a ridiculously well-preserved 72-year-old, is softly spoken and his voice is almost musical in its cadence. Hardy, 25 years his junior, by contrast, radiates an agitated restlessness and each question is met with a waterfall of words. I ask him what attracted him to the role of Harry. “The world [of MobLand] is something that I’ve already been a part of with lots of films and characters,” he says, “but this is long-form so there’s optionality for nuance and depth. It’s a good playground.”
It was his performances as James Bond in four blockbusters from 1995 to 2002 that secured cinematic immortality for Brosnan, but since then he has chosen diverse roles in such films as The Thomas Crown Affair, The Ghost Writer, Mrs Doubtfire and two Mamma Mia! movies. “Every job is a challenge and it all comes with a thump of anxiety,” he reveals, “because you have to do something. What are you doing on the stage? Why are you there? So that’s constant. You live with that. You live with that stress all the time. And that’s what’s so exhilarating. That’s what makes you alive.”
Brosnan’s accent in MobLand has, as it happens, come in for some criticism. The Irish Independent’s review said Conrad’s speaking voice was “all over the shop and a huge distraction”. This must have been particularly upsetting given that Brosnan is actually Irish. “My own accent is very soft,” he says, “Conrad’s accent is a million miles away from me.” The inspiration for the accent was a man suggested by his dialect coach. “I told him that I needed a Kerry accent,” he explains, “so he gave me the name of a man and I googled the guy and that was it. It was a Kerry accent. And so, I just gave it full tilt.”
Does he like Conrad? “I like him. I love him,” he says. “I enjoy him. I mean, I don’t want to be that person – he’s a psychopath.” He’s not exaggerating: within the first few minutes of the first episode, Conrad – a man who, in Brosnan’s words is “brutish, cunning, charming and dangerous” – has killed a man by crushing his windpipe with his shoes.
Hardy as Harry Da Souza also enforces his employer’s desires and needs through threats and violence. When he’s not killing gangsters, Harry is trying to salvage his marriage to avoid going to couples therapy with his wife, played by Joanne Froggatt. “He’s a dad, he has a partner and kills people,” says Hardy. “The compartmentalisation is what makes him fascinating because nothing spills into other compartments.”
Hardy’s father used to write scripts for the Irish comedian Dave Allen, and as a young boy Hardy, who grew up in East Sheen and attended private school, would watch Hancock’s Half Hour and Monty Python. I wonder if he ever gets sent scripts for light-hearted comedies?
“The scripts that I get are fairly funny but tend to often be connected to really dark matter, which others might find unpalatable but I find absolutely normal,” he says. “A lot of the things that I find subjectively funny deal with very dark stories of the tales of the human condition when they’re in utter crisis and despair. There’s a wicked humour in sitting in pain.”
So what does Hardy think MobLand says about men and masculinity? “What does MobLand specifically say about men and masculinity?”, he repeats the question and leaves it, and me, hanging.
“You know what, you could open up an entire can of worms on that in a really interesting manner,” he says finally. “And I think this conversation is part of the reason why we make art. I also think that as part of the team that created it, it’s not for me to have that conversation whilst promoting it. But when people sit and watch it, I’d be interested to see what their discussions are.” So you’re saying it’s a good question but you’re not going to answer it? “Of course not,” he says. “Why would I?”
A braver soul might have questioned whether MobLand stands comparison with the Iliad and the Bible, but if there’s a lesson to be learnt from talking to Tom Hardy it’s that it’s wiser to just nod and agree lest he – or possibly one of his associates, depending on his availability – finds you.
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