A guy stuck in his car on the road for an hour and a half. Boring, right? Not with the genius of writer director Steven Knight (“Eastern Promises”) and actor Tom Hardy (“The Dark Knight Rises”) at the helm. “Locke” is the story of a sturdy man in charge. During his ride from Birmingham to London we helplessly watch Ivan Locke (Hardy) demolish his life. Out of the windshield looms his future. The rearview mirror holds his past. No supervillian or CGI. This gripping drama is about an ordinary man in dire circumstances.
April 25 was just another day in the life of a New York City journalist. I hung out with Tom Hardy and writer director Steven Knight at the Waldorf. Sure beats workin’, eh?
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Dorri Olds: What did you do to get into this character’s headspace? This role seemed radically different for you.
Tom Hardy: There’s a theme to all the characters that I do. I connect to all of them at a fundamental level. Ultimately everything is in the script and up to the director. For me it wasn’t just about Locke, it was also about the essence of containment.
What were the challenges to working in the confined space of a car?
No challenges at all because it’s such a small workspace. I had less parameters to explore and investigate. It’s like being in the dark. It’s an easier space. I suppose it’s like being in a dog kennel. [Laughs] There are boundaries, in the literal sense. All I had was my GPS, the rearview mirror and the road ahead, so it was a safe place to explore. Oh and I had my box of medicine because I had a cold.
You really had a cold?
Yes, that’s always the way, isn’t it? You have to do something last minute and you get ill. But the car was a safe place to explore. A lot of the functionality is in the airwaves — conversations on the phone. That was complex, so it was good to just be driving a car in one direction, something as easy as fixing a lightbulb.
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Were you really driving in the film or was the car stationery?
It would’ve been illegal to drive while I was reading the auto cue. So no, I wasn’t actually driving. I was reading the script because I didn’t learn the lines. I got the script three days before we started shooting. If you didn’t notice that I was reading the lines, that is a bonus. [Laughs] I was following this brilliant script. I also have all these phone calls coming into my ear through a live feed. Steve would say, “OK, call Tommy now.” So I’d have to speak to my ensemble group in a hotel, live, and react to them. I was also watching the cars go by and the lights on the road, and I had a cold. So my life was not so dissimilar to Ivan Locke’s at the time. Then to add insult to injury, I had to try my best Welsh accent.
It sounded like you were channeling Richard Burton. Were you?
Yes, but a proper Welshman would probably say I failed. Wales was built on rough terrain and it’s very windy and wet, which was symbolic of where Ivan came from. I’m not trying to be classist but we wanted a working-class character who’d worked himself all the way up to being successful. The Welsh accent seemed to be particularly relevant for two reasons. One that a lot of tough men come out of Wales, due to the weather and the hard work, and two, the language sounds very kind and compassionate, almost melodic — not soporific because I didn’t want to put people to sleep. There’s a gentleness to it, which I think is important because as we watch Ivan’s face we see what he’s thinking, you hear what the people on the other end of the phone hear and he has this calming influence. He has to sound in control and be someone you can rely on in a crisis, so Wales seemed like a very good essence for that sound. So yes, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins were key.
Ivan wears a Livestrong-style rubber cause bracelet. What was it?
It was the Help For Heroes bracelet. It’s a charity for service men and women that supports the wounded. Everything I wore was relevant, including the Prince’s Trust bracelet. That charity teaches children a trade. I thought Ivan was the type of person who would reach out to help others. I also wanted him to be a submarine captain at Das Boot, hence the naval sweater and the chunky-knit jumper and the beard. You know, kind of like Captain Haddock in Tintin. Everything was chosen right down to the shirt, the handkerchief in the sleeve for the cold. Nothing was extraneous. I remember my mom blowing her nose and she’d stuff the handkerchief up her sleeve. Nobody knows when you’re on the phone having important conversations if you’re trying not to sneeze.
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“Locke” is in theaters now. Drama thriller. Rated R. 85 minutes.
Watch the trailer:
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