Tom Hardy has offered an amusing response to clip of Al Pacino attempting a cockney accent in a clip from one of the Hollywood greats rarely seen films.
Pacino, 85, is widely considered to be one the greatest actors of all-time having delivered numerous memorable roles to the big screen including Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972), Tony Montana in Scarface (1983) and Vincent Hanna in Heat (1995). The star also won an Oscar in 1993 for his lead performance as Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman (1992).
However, even for an actor of his supreme talent not every role is bound to be a success, especially when attempting to replicate a foreign accent.
Take the 1990 oddity The Local Stigmatic where Pacino plays a man named “Graham” alongside Paul Guilfoyle as “Ray”. The film, which is only 54 minutes long, was never theatrically released and is only available on DVD as part of “The Al Pacino Box Set” ghat was released in 2007.
The film itself, directed by David Wheeler and based on a play by Heathcote Williams, follows the two disillusioned characters in London who become fixated on committing acts of violence against unsuspecting victims.
For all his prowess, Pacino never quite gets a grip on the London accent and makes Dick Van Dyke’s infamous turn in Mary Poppins (1964) sound like rugged east ender Ray Winstone.
A clip from the film featuring Pacino’s accent was recently shared on Instagram by author Nooruddean Choudry which caught the attention of Hardy, an actor with his own fair share of questionable accents.
Hardy, 47, said in response to the clip: “We’ve all done it”.
Perhaps more so than any actor of his generation, Hardy has a rich history of peculiar accents throughout his various roles in film and TV.
Whether its Bane’s “King of the Gypsies” inspired voice in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or his attempt at Welsh in Locke (2013), Hardy has always committed to his accents, and would appear to be all too aware that not all of them go to plan.
Following the release of The Bikeriders in 2023, Hardy shared his thinking about his unconventional midwest accent in the period piece.
Speaking to Variety, he said he wanted his performance to play against expectations.
“You look straight away at a biker movie and think, ‘Oh, it’s leather. It’s sexy. The music’s great. The hair’s great. The obvious choice is to play to all of these.’ So the obvious choice for somebody like me is to go to the counterpoint of all those. This guy is a tragic clown,” said the Venom star.
He added: “Where’s the pathetic element? Where’s the wretch? Where’s the embarrassing moments? Where’s the weaknesses? I need to flesh this guy out. Why is the voice a little bit creepy? Why is it a little like Bugs Bunny? What can we imbue this stud with that’s so un-studly that I can identify with it? Because I’m not that!”
Hardy went on to say that he’s “not sure that I did nail” the midwest accent, but that he wasn’t concerned with simply accurately replicating a dialect.
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