Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren have defended MobLand co-star Tom Hardy after reports of behind-the-scenes tensions cast doubt on his future in the Paramount+ crime drama.
Reports emerged in May that Hardy would not be returning for a potential third season after alleged clashes with producers during production on season two.
Hardy was rumoured to have delayed his fellow actors during filming, and unnamed sources said the actor “refused to come out of his trailer for hours at a time”.
Days later, a Variety report stated that Hardy had not been fired and that discussions over his return were still under way. The question of Hardy’s future was finally settled earlier this month, when Paramount+ renewed MobLand for a third season and confirmed that Hardy would return.
Brosnan said the reports “blindsided” the cast, as he had not been aware of any such rupture.
“It was my son who sent me the text one morning. I was away on vacation, and I couldn’t believe it. I reached out to Tom, saying, ‘I love you, mate. I love you,’” Pierce Brosnan told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of the show’s second-season return.
“And he and I, you know, we communicate. He’s a painter. I’m a painter. Both actors. But anyway, just to say, ‘I’m there. We’re there. We love you.’ So for me, it was kind of a storm in a teacup,” he said.
Directed by Guy Ritchie, MobLand is a London-set crime drama about two rival organised crime families, the Harrigans and the Stevensons, whose battle for power threatens to destroy both dynasties. Tom Hardy stars as Harry Da Souza, a street-smart fixer caught between the warring families, while Pierce Brosnan plays Harrigan patriarch Conrad and Helen Mirren plays his wife, Maeve.
Mirren has already backed Hardy before, sharing a photo of the actor on Instagram in May with the caption: “Love you now and always, Helen.”
On why she chose to intervene publicly, Mirren said: “We live in the world of being talked about and interviewed in newspapers and so on and so forth. Pierce and I have both had many years of this and experience of it.”
She continued: “False rumours just should be knocked on the head, asap, which is why I did my post about Tom, not for Tom, but my absolutely genuine love of Tom.”
The Thursday Murder Club star added that her support was “par for the course” for a show where the cast is “all so mutually supportive of each other”.
“Very often the actors get blamed for this sort of thing, and if there is a rumour, the immediate sort of blame can fall on actors. That’s usually completely unfair,” she said.
Mirren described Hardy and his character as “the anchor of this mad whirlwind”, adding that no one on the cast is “even contemplating” the series without the Mad Max: Fury Road actor.
“Tom is MobLand. Without Tom, we don’t have MobLand,” said Brosnan. “He is the centre. He allows us to play these crazy characters.”
At the second-season premiere in London last week, Hardy, Brosnan, and Mirren appeared together on the red carpet, putting on a united front. Brosnan downplayed the rumours, saying he was a “massive fan” of Hardy’s work.
“We are rock solid as a company, as a family. Everyone shows up for work, and everybody’s just there on the spot. It moves very fast so it’s not like we go out and socialise and go to the pub or anything like that,” he said.
Hardy said it was a “privilege” to work with legendary actors like Mirren and Brosnan and watch them “pushing the envelope”.
“They’re awesome,” he said. “In many aspects of course I look up to them. Coming up, these are actors that came before me.”
