Tom Hardy had to suffer enormous losses daily because of The Revenant. One thing the 2015 Leonardo DiCaprio film, is well-known for is its shooting scheduling conflicts, if not for all the awards it ended up winning after its release. It was a disaster, to say the least. The film’s production extended far beyond its intended duration, requiring the cast and crew to travel extensively worldwide just in search of snow.

Due to this very reason the actor, Tom Hardy had no choice but to withdraw himself from the role of Rick Flag in Suicide Squad. And therefore was understandably pissed, in a Variety interview, the actor stated how his experience during the whole process was.

Tom Hardy in The Revenant (2015).

Also Read: “I’d rather be the naughty boy”: Tom Hardy Wrestled Director of $533M Leonardo DiCaprio Movie That Won 3 Oscars

Tom Hardy Was Losing Money Because of The Revenant

After Tom Hardy left Suicide Squad, many rumors started floating, but little did the fans know that the actor was stuck in snow filming with Leonardo DiCaprio. Several months after he left the project, during an interview about Mad Max: Fury Road, the actor candidly admitted the true reason for his departure from the project, emphasizing that it was solely due to a scheduling conflict and had no correlation with the content of Suicide Squad.

A still from David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016).

Later in a Variety interview, the actor admitted his grief for losing the role and then proceeded to narrate his side of the story by saying,
“It punched right into that, yeah. That got derailed for me. Was I bummed? Of course I was. I hate f–king losing work. I kept bemoaning that they were losing me significant money on a daily basis. Actually, it was good for my character.”

A still from Tom Hardy wrestling with Alejandro González

Iñárritu on the sets of The Revenant
Although at the very end, the efforts were all worth it, Hardy feels he missed out on a lot while he was busy shooting at Calgary. Thus, despite earning equal praise to DiCaprio for his performance in the film, Hardy couldn’t help but resent the movie for making him miss his chance to be in a supervillain movie.

Why Was The Revenant’s Shooting Schedule Such a Mess?

At the start of production, the cinematographer for the movie, Emmanuel Lubezki made a deliberate choice to exclusively utilize natural light for every scene in the film, and thus the ‘delightful’ nightmare began. He said,

“We wanted to make a movie that was immersive and visceral…The idea of using natural light came because we wanted the audience to feel, I hope, that this stuff is really happening.”
As the shooting took place in real locations, the team had to heavily rely on the weather conditions. However, on days when the sky was overcast, they had to think of other ways to make it work, such as bounce cards, and campfires to replicate the natural lighting of the sun.

A scene from The Revenant

A Hollywood Reporter source confessed,

“We’d never shoot what we blocked.–Everything was indecisive, whether it was this particular actor for this particular role, this costume, this makeup.”
The snow was a huge playing factor in all this as well. The production team initially started filming in Alberta, especially for the snow but contrary to expectations, the weather turned unseasonably warm, causing the snow to rapidly melt deep into the shooting schedule. Thus, they had to continuously move back and forth resulting in a huge delay. But the tremendous efforts proved to be worthwhile as the film garnered global recognition, and won multiple awards, including three Oscars.

Source: Variety