Tom Hardy Scores Ridley Scott BBC Drama Series

It looks like it’s a full plate for actor Tom Hardy. The actor, who’s set to play Elton John in an upcoming biopic, just scored another high-profile project. It was just announced that the Dark Knight Rises actor is set to star in an eight-part series on BBC called Taboo.

The versatile Hardy, who took on roles in both film and television throughout his career, is set to return to TV for a limited engagement. The series, Taboo, is from his Locke director and screenwriter Steven Knight, and is being produced by Ridley Scott.

Hardy’s new project will be set in 1813 and will see the actor as James Delaney, a man who gets revenge for his father’s death after coming back home from Africa with fourteen diamonds. Interesting enough, Hardy wrote the original story with his own father Chips. According to the actor, the story is “a flagship drama for this generation — a hybrid of orthodox and unconventional storytelling.” Ridley Scott seems to have a lot of faith in Hardy’s character, and has said that the character “will become iconic.”

Screenwriter Steven Knight described the character of James Delaney as “a deeply flawed and deeply troubled human being”.

In a statement to the BBC, Knight described the essential struggle of Tom Hardy’s character:

“His greatest struggle will be against the East India Company which, throughout the 19th Century, was the equivalent of the CIA, the NSA and the biggest, baddest multinational corporation on earth, all rolled into one self-righteous, religiously motivated monolith.”

In addition to Taboo, Tom Hardy also has three films coming out — The Drop with the late James Gandolfini, Child 44, and Mad Max: Fury Road, where he steps into Mel Gibson’s shoes as Max Rockatansky.

Of his iconic role in Mad Max, Hardy said:

“[Mad Max]’s great. It’s a big old piece, it’s a behemoth of a piece. I’m off there next week to do some reshoots — well not reshoots actually, but doing more. We’re building, building more Mad Maxes, even more spectacular and cool stuff. Imagine a hungry wolf. Or like when you put a cat in the bath. You grab a cat by the throat and stuff it under the f***ing water. You know what it looks like? That’s what I’m going to look like. But like a puma.”

As we previously reported, up until now Hardy has been busy with re-shoots.

Taboo will begin filming in January 2015 in the UK.

[Image Credit: A24]