2008
Michael Peterson/Charles Bronson
Co-Stars: Matt King, Amanda Burton, James Lance, Kelly Adams
Awards: Winner of the 2009 Best Film at the Sydney Film Festival, nominated for the 2009 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, nominated for Best Achievement in Production and winner of Best Actor (Tom Hardy) at the British Independent Film Awards, nominated for the 2010 ALFS British Actor of the Year (Tom Hardy) at the London Critics Circle Film Awards, nominated for the 2010 London Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor.
Tom Hardy is pure dynamite in the role, beefing up 35 pounds to play Britain’s most notorious prisoner…Hardy’s electrifying performance will knock you for a loop. -Rolling Stone
Synopsis: In 1974, a hot-headed 19 year old named Michael Peterson decided he wanted to make a name for himself and so, with a homemade sawn-off shotgun and a head full of dreams he attempted to rob a post office. Swiftly apprehended after netting only £26.18 and originally sentenced to 7 years in jail, Peterson has subsequently been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement. During that time, Michael Petersen, the boy, faded away and ‘Charles Bronson,’ his superstar alter ego, took center stage…
With the same brutal yet operatic flair he brought to his previous films, The Pusher Trilogy, director Nicholas Winding Refn gets inside the mind of Bronson, and delivers not only a portrait of an artist bereft of an outlet, but also a scathing indictment of celebrity culture.
Nicolas Winding Refn, director, on Tom Hardy:
Tom Hardy is a very nice guy and a very good actor and we had a very good relationship throughout the shoot. Whatever discussions we had were always for the best of the project. I shoot my films in chronological order, which is a process that some actors find tougher to do but Tom was very collaborative and the movie is better for this.
(at Cambridge screening of Bronson to benefit FLACK)
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