Tom Hardy: ?Sexuality Question Was Rude And Demeaning?

Actor Tom Hardy has spoken out about an incident earlier in the week, in which a reporter very rudely questioned his sexuality, during a promotional interview for his new movie the Legend.

Hardy rightly shut him down for asking the highly inappropriate question but has decided to speak out about the matter more extensively in a new interview. He explained that he did this because he felt the question was ?inelegant and humiliating.?

In case you missed it, the question went like this: ?In the film, your character Ronnie is very open about his sexuality. But given interviews you’ve done in the past your own sexuality seems a bit more ambiguous. Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk to media about their sexuality??

Hardy was unimpressed and abruptly cut the reporter (who was from LGBT news outlet Daily Xtra) off which must have made for an awkward moment:

The reporter was referring to Hardy’s 2008 interview with Allure, in which he was asked if he’d ever had any sexual involvement with a man: ?As a boy? Of course, I have. I’m an actor for f**k’s sake. I’m an artist. I’ve played with everything and everyone,? Hardy said at the time.

The Dark Knight Rises star told The Guardian that he felt the way in which the question was poised – in a public forum used to promote his work – was an invasion of privacy.

?It was just the inelegance of being asked in a room full of people,? he said. ?I’m happy to have a conversation, a discussion, at a reasonable time about anything. I’m confident in my own sexuality, and I’m also confident in my own being and talking about any issue you want to talk about it. But there is a time and a place for that.?

In his new movie, Hardy plays both Reggie Kray, a heterosexual, and his twin brother Ronnie, a bisexual. Daily Xtra then argued that they had a right to ask Hardy about his sexuality because of a responsibility to their community, and the actor did not agree.

?I found it very humiliating for somebody to decide that on his dime and his time, to openly and inelegantly pursue a line of questioning which I could only sense was zeroing in on a reaction from me that would become a topic of discussion that had nothing to do really, really to do with what was there,? he continued. ?I’m quite sensitive, and I feel like I’ve let people down for something that I actually didn’t ask for, for something that’s important to a lot of people.?

I’m under no obligation to share anything to do with my family, my children, my sexuality – that’s nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t see how that can have anything to do with what I do as an actor, and it’s my own business

“I’m under no obligation to share anything to do with my family, my children, my sexuality – that’s nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t see how that can have anything to do with what I do as an actor, and it’s my own business,” he said.

Hardy’s response is eloquently put, and he makes a valid point. Though he may work in the public domain, he is entitled to his privacy. What he is not is a show pony, simply there to answer every inappropriate question that gets thrown his way. As Hardy said, there is a time and a place, and the reporter definitely lost sight of that.

Via The Guardian