Paramount’s hit crime show, Mobland, may be missing one of its biggest names when it returns for its third season.
Tom Hardy, who plays Harry Da Souza, the Harrigan crime family’s “fixer” in the series, is facing an uncertain future on the show, according to multiple reports. Puck News reported that Paramount made the decision not to bring back the Oscar nominee, 48, for the show’s third season on Thursday, after the actor “clashed with producers.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hardy has not yet been cut from the show, and discussions about how to move forward are ongoing.
The Daily Beast has reached out to representatives for Hardy and Paramount.
The conflict comes just two months after filming for Season 2 wrapped. Puck reports that while shooting Mobland, Hardy was frequently late to set and feuded with producers Jez Butterworth and David Glasser over his character’s arc.
Hardy’s disagreements with Butterworth, 57, became so heated that the Tony-winning producer threatened to quit, according to Puck’s sources, which claimed the streamer quelled the situation by releasing Hardy from his contract.
The site also reports that the actor often tried to change dialogue during filming and offered unsolicited critiques of scripts.
Sources claim the Peaky Blinders star “expressed his displeasure” about his diminishing role in the series compared to co-stars Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, as the London crime show was originally built around Hardy’s character, but became more of an ensemble show as the series progressed.
Hardy, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 2015’s The Revenant, could leave the show on his own, Puck notes, as his contract contains a “mutual option” for Season 3.
Hardy’s Mobland departure is not the first on-set controversy of his career.
On the set of his leading role in the 2015 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road, Hardy reportedly feuded with co-star Charlize Theron so much so that he had to be “coaxed out of his trailer” by director George Miller.
“Tom has a damage to him but also a brilliance that comes with it, and whatever was going on with him at the time, he had to be coaxed out of his trailer,” Miller, 81, told The Telegraph nearly a decade later. “Whereas Charlize was incredibly disciplined—a dancer by training, which told in the precision of her performance—and always the first one on set.”
Though Miller “saw their behavior as mirroring their characters,” the Oscar-winning director said, “There’s no excuse for it.”
“I think there’s a tendency in this business to use great performances as an excuse for other disruptions that could be avoided,” he added.
Theron, 50, reportedly became upset when Hardy showed up hours late to set, shouting, “Fine the f---ing c--- a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he’s held up this crew.”
She explained the situation in the movie’s oral history book, saying her relationship with Hardy was like “two parents in the front of the car.”
“We were either fighting or we were icing each other... It was horrible!” she said. “We should not have done that; we should have been better. I can own up to that.”
Hardy, for his part in the feud, didn’t apologize until the film screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
“I owe George an apology for being so myopic,” he said during the 2015 press conference, skipping an apology to Theron.
He later explained the on-set feud to the Daily Beast.
“I mean, there are these myths that are usually asininely circulated about things that go on on set that aren’t nearly as dramatic as they’re made out to be. There was no hatchet to bury, for me,” he said in 2017.
“I still do think that Charlize is one of the best actresses in the world and a mega-talent. I think she’s brilliant, and I would love to work with her again. So there’s really no hatchet for me to bury at all in any way, shape or form.”
