A HARDY BRAWL
Here’s how “Legend” staged the fight between two characters played by one actor.
BY MICHAEL ORDOÑA >>> In “Legend,” Tom Hardy turns in a critically lauded performance as both of the infamous Kray twins, gangsters in the early days of Swinging London. Reggie Kray is depicted as suave, intelligent — and fatally loyal to his brother, Ron, a paranoid schizophrenic with uncontrollably violent tendencies. The tension between them comes to a head after Reggie is released from a stint in prison and returns with his girlfriend, Frances (Emily Browning), to the nightclub the twins own. A full-on fistfight breaks out between the two men, who, you’ll remember, are really just Hardy. Here, the cast and crew — along with script excerpts — reveal how the scene came together.
THE BAR
Reggie, trying to control himself, looks at Frances who looks back at him.
Dick Pope, director of photography: All the other scenes in the club are darker; [this setup is] brighter and garish. It goes with the feel that Ronnie’s let the club sink into squalor. Every single lamp in that scene was cheap and low tech, with practical lighting.
Peter McNulty, editor: They put little earpieces in [Hardy’s] ear, which we took out later with the FX. He would do one half of the scene, then play that against the [body double]; I’d overlap it so it would feel like he was having an argument.
Reggie looks back at her. “Let’s go” in her eyes. As Ron feels himself losing his brother...
Brian Helgeland, writer-director: For Tom and I, the more character-oriented it could be, the better. The luxury was that both Kray brothers were amateur boxers. Reggie was a clever boxer, and strategic, and Ron was a brawler. Reggie’s much more compact and boxer-like, and Ron’s taking these big haymaker swings.
RON
We’re talking about earning a living, Frances. We’re talking about being gangsters, which is what we are. So ... off.
Tom Hardy, actor: We wanted to tell the story of two brothers who didn’t want to kill each other but they wanted to have a good old proper tear-up. There’s so much glorifying of criminals and gangster culture, I thought it was really important to tell a story about these two brothers that was quite human.
Julian Spencer, fight choreographer:
I had a fight with my brother many years ago, and you don’t fight to the death because they’re your family.
And it’s on. Frances watches as: Two brothers fight ... Frances grimaces as the force of it all escalates.
Pope: Julian and Tom showed us what they’d worked out for the fight, and it went all over the ballroom. It was everywhere. They’re in the middle, then he throws his brother to the other end, then they’re up and they’re over there … so Brian and I thought, “To hell with it. Let ’em go.”
McNulty: I don’t know Tom Hardy that well, but this was two different people when I was cutting the movie.
Hardy: Although they were very serious boxers when they were younger and you’d expect these two gangsters to be incredibly violent and brutal and gritty, we wanted to go for the complete paradoxical opposite of that and have sort of a catfight, like two old ladies or two old men going at each other. It doesn’t buy into that sort of glamorous, cool gangster world.
Helgeland: [Hardy] came to me and asked, “How many takes do you think you’re going to do?” and he had never asked me that question, ever. I said, “Why do you want to know?” And he said, “Because Jacob [Tomuri, Hardy’s body and
stunt double] and I are really going to hit each other.” I said, “Well, three.” He nodded and said, “OK, three. I can pace myself to do three,” and he started to walk away. And I said, “Tom, that’s three for Reggie; then I need three for Ron.” [laughs]
Hardy: So I slapped Jacob solidly for a whole day and then he turned around and slapped me solidly for a whole day the next day. It was good stuff.
Spencer: I had to strip Tom down of his fighting skills when he went to play Ronnie because he was just too good, he’s done MMA and all, and Ronnie’s just a dirty fighter. It was trying to slow him down all the time; he’s so quick and agile.
His stunt guy couldn’t react to the speed of the punches. His punches are perfect; he can stop a quarter-inch from the nose.
Helgeland: We shot it like we’d shoot a real fight and the editor cut the very best version of the fight he could cut, irrespective of whether you saw it was a stunt man. Then we figured out we could afford to do seven face replacements.
Adam Rowland, visual effects supervisor: For the entire film, we had to get all our face-replacement, greenscreen elements shot in an afternoon, really. That meant we weren’t able to do individual lighting setups. One of the things that was tricky to replicate was the levels of sweat on the skin, which
reflected the ambient levels of light in the room.
The Brother Battle Royale ebbs and flows.
Pope: I adore the bit where Ronnie gets his nose broken and walks up to the bar and drinks the old boy’s drink. They never move through the whole fight. They remind me of [the old men] Statler and Waldorf of the Muppets. Ronnie’s covered in blood, drinks the guy’s liquor, the guy doesn’t bat an eyelid.
Ron and Reggie finally end up on the floor … Reggie slumps, catches his breath, looks: Frances is gone.
McNulty: The close-up of Ron’s hands hugging Reggie on the ground … these big, tough hands, and it’s brotherly love and he hugs him at the end. It’s Reggie understanding when he says, “I’m very sensitive,” and he gives him a hug.
I remember the angle we had on Ron on the ground. His face is upside down. For some reason, that really lent a lot to the scene. He’s having this crazy moment, and instead of a straight-on shot, the camera is looking at him where his chin is at the top of the frame, all covered in blood and stuff. I just thought that was another subliminal feeling of “He’s crazy.”
Hardy: It had to be awkward. It was just riding the cusp of comic but at the same time telling the story of what the fight was really ultimately about, which was that all Ronnie wanted was to get rid of Frances and have Reggie come back and stay with him and have a cuddle and tell him that he needs help. It was important to tell that story within the fight itself, within the tone of the piece.
Helgeland: It’s the one time in the film Ron articulates to his brother that he knows something’s wrong with him; mental illness. It’s the way it all wraps up, the payoff to the whole thing.
Staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this story. calendar@latimes.com