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Until Star Trek: Picard came along in 2020, the final chapter of The Next Generation saga (onscreen, at least) had been Nemesis, the fourth of the Star Trek movies spotlighting Jean-Luc Picard and his crew. The 2002 movie saw its protagonists clashing with the new leader of the Romulan Empire, Shinzon, who was played by a then-unknown Tom Hardy. While reflecting on his Nemesis experience, Patrick Stewart opened up about how he didn’t think Hardy would make it big at the time, and how he obviously ended up being wrong about the actor’s future.
A year after making his film debut in Black Hawk Down and TV debut in Band of Brothers, Tom Hardy antagonized the crew of the Enterprise-E, with Shinzon being revealed as a clone of Stewart’s Picard. Yet despite the genetic connection between these two characters, Stewart wrote in his memoir Make It So (via Insider) that he and Hardy didn’t develop a close relationship while working on Star Trek: Nemesis, saying:
Tom wouldn’t engage with any of us on a social level. Never said, ‘Good morning,’ never said, ‘Goodnight,’ and spent the hours he wasn’t needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend. He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him.
We may never know the specific reason Tom Hardy was so distant from his Nemesis costars, whether nervousness had anything to do with it or if he simply only wanted to be around set to work, then spend whatever free time he had left doing something else. In any case, by the time Nemesis wrapped shooting, Hardy had remained almost a complete stranger to Patrick Stewart and the rest of the cast, which prompted Stewart to make the following incorrect assumption about where Hardy’s performing career would go:
On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door. As it closed, I said quietly to Brent and Jonathan, ‘And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.’ It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong.
He was certainly incorrect in that assessment. Granted, Star Trek: Nemesis doesn’t go down as one of the more beloved entries on Tom Hardy’s filmography, but the immediate years afterwards saw him appearing in movies like Layer Cake, Marie Antoinette and Bronson. Then Hardy’s profile got a big boost in the early 2010s thanks to Inception and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and once he played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, he became a Hollywood name. His other major film credits include Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Dunkirk and the Venom movies, as well as TV shows like Peaky Blinders and Taboo.
While things didn’t end well for Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis, and Patrick Stewart’s time as Jean-Luc Picard appears to be over (for now) following the conclusion of Picard Season 3, perhaps there will come an opportunity for Stewart and Hardy to work on another project and build a proper rapport there. If not, my fingers are crossed that they can at least meet in public or at a social function to have a proper conversation and get on friendlier terms with one another, though clearly Stewart is impressed with how far Hardy has gone in his professional life.
Star Trek: Nemesis, along with Picard and nearly every other Star Trek movie and TV show, can be watched with a Paramount+ subscription. Tom Hardy can next be seen reprising Eddie Brock in Venom 3, which is slated on the 2024 movie schedule for a July 12 arrival.