Tom Hardy has been a successful performer over the years. He is widely known for his striking looks and cerebral performances in mainstream blockbusters.

Besides his idiosyncratic personality, the actor is also known for playing dark movie characters. He portrayed characters like the tormented fighter in Warrior and the supervillain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky in a still from Mad Max: Fury Road
Other films like Mad Max: Fury Road and Bronson also feature him in intense roles. But it’s not like that he never tried for different parts. Early in his career, he tried to audition for a lighter role in the 2005 romantic drama Pride & Prejudice, but it broke his heart when someone from Universal Pictures felt he wasn’t the right fit.

Tom Hardy Lost Mr. Darcy’s Role Due to Universal Pictures’ Decision

Tom Hardy
Tom Hardy tried out for the role of Mr. Darcy in the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice by Joe Wright, starring Keira Knightley. However, the part went to Matthew Macfadyen because Hollywood producer Stacey Snider took him aside and said to him that he was not close to what Darcy is. She said:
“Honey, women over the world have a picture of what Darcy is and I’m afraid you’re just not it.”
In 2009, the actor told in an interview with The Telegraph, “That hurt, that really hurt,” adding:
 “I’d worn a blue shirt and jeans and a blue blazer and been doing my best Hugh Grant impression. But now I was back to playing the wonky skewiff-teeth kid with the bow legs.”
Undoubtedly, it would have been hard for him to continue working on the same genre later on. Not only this, but these words also impacted him in his future course of work.

Tom Hardy Believed That Rom-Coms Wasn’t His Strong Suit

Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon in This Means War

In the same interview with the LA Times, Hardy added that this experience motivated him to avoid romantic comedies. He said that he’s “obviously not a romantic lead,” so he will “not going to focus a lot of his attention” on being something he is not. The actor explained that he likes to play people “who’ve got a bit of range on them: a little bit of dark and a little bit of light.”

It’s not like Hardy never played a romantic lead after that. He did and took another chance at the romance genre with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine. The film was This Means War — which starred Hardy as a CIA agent where he competed with FDR Foster (Pine) for Lauren Scott’s (Witherspoon) affection. He took on this role because it was something he had never experienced before.

Anyway, he didn’t enjoy the experience of working on the film, and it also somehow made him believe that comedy is not his cup of tea. The Venom star also emphasized that he “probably won’t do a romantic comedy again.”