Tom Hardy: I’d Have Sold My Mum For Crack

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ star Tom Hardy has opened up about his troubled past admitting he’s “f***ing lucky” to be alive.

The 37-year-old actor, who battled alcohol and crack addictions in his 20s but been clean and sober since 2003, says that at the height of his dependencies, “I would have sold my mother for a rock of crack.”

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He says it took some stern words of advice to turn his life around, telling Essentials magazine: “I was a shameful suburban statistic. I was told very clearly, ‘you go down that road, Tom, you won’t come back. That’s it. All you need to know’. That message stayed with me clearly for the rest of my days. I am f***ing lucky to be here.”

Hardy, best known for playing muclebound henchman Bane in 2012′s ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, also refuted his reputation as a Hollywood hardman in the interview.

“The trouble with Hollywood is they want you to be something, then they think you’re who they wanted you to be,” he said, “I’m not a fighter. I’m a petite little bourgeois boy from London.”

"People didn’t sit up and take any notice of me until I started putting on weight, kicking people and being aggressive!”

Hardy made his movie debut in 2001 in Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Hawk Down’. He followed that up with roles in WW2 TV drama ‘Band of Brothers’ and as the villain in 2002′s ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’.

Above: Hardy as Jean-Luc Picard’s clone in ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’

It was his transformative performance in Nicolas Winding Refn’s real life prison drama ‘Bronson’ in 2008 that really catapulted him to the Hollywood A-list, capturing the attention of Christopher Nolan who cast him in ‘Inception’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’.

He’ll next be seen as the new lead in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ which hits cinemas this week and as twin gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray in Brian Helgeland’s ‘Legend’ out later this year. Watch a trailer below.

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Image credits: Reuters/Paramount