Kray twins movie: ‘Mad Max’ actor Tom Hardy plays both Ronnie and Reggie in ‘Legend’
RONNIE and Reggie Kray once ruled London’s underworld with fists and charm. Tom Hardy’s chilling turn — as both of them — has closest confidants convinced.
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IN the 1950s and ‘60s, gangster twin brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray ruled London’s East End with clenched fists and glitzy charm.
Officially they worked as nightclub owners.
Unofficially, through their crime syndicate “The Firm”, the deadly pair are said to have perpetrated armed robberies, arson attacks and protection rackets.
The violent twins were notorious for torturous assaults and intimidation just as much as they were for being generous and regal playboys.
Their infamy grew to such height that celebrity photographer David Bailey took portraits of them.
The pair had a legion of sycophantic admirers and considered themselves as untouchable, until their love of the limelight led them to the top of Scotland Yard’s list of targets.
The pair were hard-headed, ultra-violent depraved crooks, according to police of the day.
Both ended up in jail.
Although now dead (Ronnie died in 1995 and Reggie in 2000), both remain an integral part of London’s crime folklore and have been the subject of numerous books and films.
In 1990, Martin and Gary Kemp — the British brothers who fronted music group Spandau Ballet — played the Krays in a movie of the same name.
According to reports, the two ageing gangsters hated the film.
Speaking on British television’s Lorraine program recently, insider Maureen Flanagan — who was reportedly known as the Kray twins’ de facto “little sister” — said Ronnie and Reggie were particularly upset by the fact their mother was shown to swear (apparently she never did).
Of the 1990 Kemp brothers’ film, Ms Flanagan said: “I thought I’ll go to see the film and if they (the Kemp brothers) don’t frighten me they can’t be Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
“They had to have that menace and that aura about them, and they didn’t frighten me ... They (the real Kray brothers) hated the film.”
Twenty five years later and British actor Tom Hardy, who portrayed iconic Aussie road warrior Mad Max in the most recent Max film, has stepped up to the plate to play both Kray brothers in the 2015 movie Legend.
“He was attracted to Ronnie and I was wanting him to play Reggie,” Legend writer and director Brian Helgeland said during a recent press conference in Toronto.
“Tom basically said, ‘I’ll give you Reggie if you give me Ron’. Then we were off and running ... We didn’t want it to turn into a gimmick.”
According to Hardy: “I wanted to play both of them from the start and I couldn’t see one without the other.
“But if I had to choose one ... I would have gone with Ron because there’s more on the smorgasbord as it were, to play with.”
Hardy saw Ronnie as a “tragic clown” versus Reggie with his straighter persona.
Having grown up in England, Hardy well knew of the Kray legend.
“I was very aware of the infamy of the Krays,” he told The National.
“There were so many stories surrounding them, they were icons of sorts, and I certainly read about them growing up, in books and on TV. That world, the world they created in a sense, is so cloaked in rumours and hearsay.”
During the Toronto press conference Hardy added: “In London, everybody’s got a story or a take on them so there was plenty to draw upon (when playing both characters).
“The question was where to find the best stories.”
Hardy mentioned diaries, investigative journalists, unseen footage and real life insiders as points of reference.
“A lot of people come out of the woodwork when you say you’re going to do a bipic about them,” he said.
“You start to meet everybody and they’re more than happy to tell you a story.”
For character accuracy, Helgeland and Hardy worked with a Kray insider to research the roles.
That insider was former hit man Freddie “Brown Bread Fred” Foreman.
Helgeland told The Australian about one time Foreman visited the set to have a chat.
“Freddie looked over my shoulder and said ‘Jesus f. king Christ!’ or something to that effect, and he was shocked,” Helgeland said.
“I turned around and over my shoulder there was Tom dressed as Ron, and in Ronnie mode. He looked at Freddie and, in character as Ron, said, ‘Hel-lo Fred-die’ — and it was like Freddie had seen a ghost.
“He couldn’t believe it and said, ‘I’m looking at Ron Kray 25 years after his death.’ He was shaking, he couldn’t get over it.”
But the film does, apparently, have it’s detractors.
Frances Shea’s aunt Franie, Reggie’s real life love interest, is a character with a major role in the film.
Australian actor Emily Browning plays the role of Franie Shea.
“I was mortified to see the huge part that my Franie was given,” Ms Shea told the Express in August.
“The film seemed to play around her as she provides the narration throughout ... I have nothing against the cast of this film, Tom Hardy and Emily Browning are great actors, but they did not have the right ingredients and they did not catch the essence of any of the people I remember — my father, my aunt and my nan.
“It’s not all right to come to the East End and dip your toe in for a month or two and then think you know the whole East End story.”
For the record, the film is said to be largely based on the book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, by John Pearson.
According to Helgeland, the Kray twins are the “protagonists of the film”.
“My biggest goal was to be on ground level with them and not to look down on them and not to look up to them — but to be with them,” Helgeland said.
“Not to excuse them and apologise for them, which I’m very confident the film doesn’t do. The truth of the movie was to be with them and try to understand them and not demonise them, because demonising them is boring.
“To humanise them is much more compelling and interesting, and it makes it harder to judge them. Certainly people can judge them. They were judged and they paid a heavy price for what they did.
“Once there’s an understanding of them I think judging them becomes more difficult and it makes for more of a compelling story. I never thought I was the guy who was going to figure out the real truth.”
As Hardy told The National: “Although we’re not making a documentary, it’s a dramatisation of real life events — it was important that (the film) didn’t wander off into fantasy.”
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