Biography of Ben Hardy
Ben Hardy is an English actor best known for playing Angel in the superhero action movie X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and Queen drummer Roger Taylor in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
Pictured: Ben Hardy
The actor is not related to Tom Hardy – they are namesakes.
Childhood and youth
Ben Jones (Hardy) was born on January 2, 1991 in the resort town of Bournemouth in the English county of Dorset. Ben’s father, an employee of an insurance company, and a housewife mother soon divorced, which put the family in a difficult position. Ben and his younger brother and sister were raised by their mother and grandmother, who lived in the small town of Sherborne.
During his school years, Ben went in for sports and did not think about an acting career.
During his school years, Ben showed himself well in sports and the exact sciences and thought about becoming an engineer, but one incident changed everything. As a high school student, Hardy starred as rakish Sergeant Francis Troy in the film adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. The film was directed by Hardy’s schoolteacher, who had no experience in filmmaking. She shot her debut picture using only one camera, and her students acted as actors.
Ben Hardy started acting in films during his school days
“When Miss Clark suggested this idea, we thought she was joking,” said 18-year-old Ben Jones in an early interview. “But we all agreed, and it turned out great.” Participation in such a project finally approved Ben in the thought of an acting career. Subsequently, Hardy graduated with honors from the London Central School of Speech and Drama with a degree in acting.
Actor career
In 2012, Ben Hardy got a role in David Hare’s play “Kiss of Judas”, in which the famous British actor Rupert Everett also played (Grigory Melekhov in the television series “Quiet Flows the Don” by Sergei Bondarchuk). The performance ran successfully for two months at the Hampstead Theater in London, after which the artists went on a short tour of England. Critics and spectators enthusiastically accepted the performance – Hardy, who played part of the role completely naked, received special attention.
In 2012, Ben Hardy played the first serious role
In the spring of 2013, Hardy landed the role of Peter Beal in the British BBC soap opera EastEnders. The series, produced since 1985, shows the daily life of ordinary inhabitants of the fictional Walford County in east London.
I am thrilled to be joining the fantastic cast of a series that my family has been watching regularly for many years.
The last episode of the series with the participation of Ben was released in February 2014, and soon the actor switched to another large-scale project. Hardy was approved for the role of the winged mutant Angel in Bryan Singer’s superhero action movie X-Men: Apocalypse. To prepare for the role in the film, the guy had to train a lot in a wind tunnel. “An angel must learn to fly,” the actor joked. Working on the film brought him not only national popularity, but also acquaintance with the most sought-after Hollywood actors – James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and others.
In 2017, Hardy played in the film “Beauty for the Beast” by Haif Al-Mansour. The drama tells about the life of the writer Mary Shelley (the creator of Frankenstein) and the acquaintances that pushed her to write her main masterpiece. Elle Fanning played the central character, while Ben got the role of the English writer John William Polidori, the author of the first vampire novel in the history of literature.
Frame from the film “Beauty for the Beast”
Also, the young actor could be seen in the drama “Case of the Brave”, based on real events, about firefighters who faced one of the largest fires in history in Arizona. The film starring Josh Brolin and Miles Teller was released in Russia in November 2017. In April 2018, Hardy appeared in the lead role in the BBC miniseries The Woman in White, a modern adaptation of the classic gothic novel by Wilkie Collins.
Ben Hardy in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody
A huge success for the young actor was the approval for one of the main roles in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. In the drama about the legendary British rock band Queen, Ben played drummer Roger Taylor; vocalist Freddie Mercury was introduced by Rami Malek.
Prior to the casting, Hardy had never approached a drum set in his life, but he assured the producers otherwise. “It’s almost like folk wisdom: to declare with confidence that you are a master in this matter, and then figure it out later!” Hardy laughs. Before the audition, the actor bought a drum set and practiced hard every day. As a result, at the casting, he managed to play a couple of songs tolerably, and Hardy – strikingly similar to Taylor – was approved for the role.
The film was a resounding success and was nominated for an Oscar in five categories. Worldwide box office receipts exceeded filming costs by 16 times – “Bohemian Rhapsody” became the highest grossing musical biopic of all time.
Personal life of Ben Hardy
Since college, for almost 9 years, Ben Hardy dated actress Catriona Perrette, but the couple broke up in the summer of 2018. Now Ben’s heart is not busy – he is looking for his soul mate in dating applications.
Ben Hardy with Catriona Perrette
The height of the actor is 174 cm.
Ben Hardy now
It is known that Ben Hardy will appear in the action movie by American director Michael Bay “6 feet underground” – a story about rich people who fake their death in order to unite in a team for an underground fight against crime. The plot for the film was written by the creative duo of Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, the authors of the movie hits “Welcome to Zombieland” (2009) and “Deadpool” (2016).
Ben Hardy (left) on the set of 6 Feet Under
