Star Trek franchise legend Patrick Stewart has recalled his experience working with a then-unknown Tom Hardy in the 2002 film Star Trek: Nemesis.
In the actor’s new memoir, Making It So, Stewart details the underwhelming time he had playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the final theatrical release featuring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. While the highlight of the movie was Hardy’s villainous role as Shinzon, the clone of Capt. Picard, Stewart says the actor did not come across as a stand-out performer on set.
“Nemesis, which came out in 2002, was particularly weak. I didn’t have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie’s villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy,” Stewart wrote.
How Tom Hardy kept his distance from the Star Trek cast
During pre-production on Star Trek: Nemesis, director Stuart Baird and producer Rick Berman sought after an actor in their mid-20s who could resemble Stewart. The production had its eye on Jude Law for a time until Baird decided to seek out an unknown actor for Shinzon. At age 25, Hardy had a few acting credits under his belt, including Black Hawk Down and HBO’s Band of Brothers. While Stewart and his TNG castmates already had a relaxed chemistry with each other, the actor remembers Hardy keeping to himself most of the time.
“Tom wouldn’t engage with any of us on a social level. Never said, ‘Good morning,’ never said, ‘Goodnight,’ and spent the hours he wasn’t needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend,” Stewart wrote. “[Hardy] was by no means hostile. It was just challenging to establish any rapport with him.”
As the 10th installment of the Star Trek movie franchise, Star Trek: Nemesis followed the USS Enterprise-E crew facing a threat to the United Federation of Planets by Shinzon and rogue members of the Romulan Star Empire. Released during the holiday season of 2002, Nemesis was a critical and commercial disappointment that made Paramount put the big-screen franchise on ice until the release of J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek reboot in 2009. Stewart would later reprise his iconic role in Star Trek: Picard for three seasons on Paramount+.
Despite the failure of Nemesis, Hardy emerged as an A-list movie star over time with hits such as Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Venom. As Stewart writes in his memoir, he was happy to see the once-isolated actor on the Nemesis set turn out to become a household name.
“On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door,” Stewart wrote. “As it closed, I said quietly to Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes], ‘And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.’ It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong.”
