Star Trek legend Sir Patrick Stewart isn’t a fan of Star Trek: Nemesis. Among the problems he encountered was actor Tom Hardy, who Stewart claims was “challenging” to work with on the 2002 Star Trek movie.
“Tom wouldn’t engage with any of us on a social level,” Stewart claimed in his new memoir Making It So (via Insider). “Never said, ‘Good morning,’ never said, ‘Goodnight,’ and spent the hours he wasn’t needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend.”
“He was by no means hostile,” added Stewart. “It was just challenging to establish any rapport with him.”
Star Trek: Nemesis starred Hardy as Shinzon, the villainous Praetor and leader of the Romulan empire who turns out to be an imperfect clone of Picard himself. The film was critically panned and sits at 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps most embarrassingly, Stewart wasn’t a fan of the film, either.
“Nemesis, which came out in 2002, was particularly weak,” he said. “I didn’t have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie’s villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy.”
As for Hardy himself, Stewart admitted he never thought he would find such a long career. “On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door,” Stewart revealed. “As it closed, I said quietly to [co-stars] Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes], ‘And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.’ It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong.”
Hardy has reportedly proved difficult to work with, allegedly causing a friction between himself and Mad Max: Fury Road co-star Charlize Theron that resulted in her feeling unsafe while filming the sci-fi hit. “[I spent] several weeks on that movie where I wouldn’t know what was going to come my way, and that’s not necessarily a nice thing to feel when you’re on your job,” she said. “It was a little bit like walking on thin ice.”
IGN’s Star Trek: Nemesis review gave it 3/10 and said: “I walked out of Star Trek Nemesis – whose promotional tag line is ‘A generation’s final journey begins’ – with the words of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’s Chancellor Gorkon echoing in my head: ‘Don’t let it end this way.’ Not for The Next Generation, and not for the franchise in general.”
Want to read more about Star Trek? Check out the ‘original’ ending of Star Trek: Picard as well as why Star Trek should embrace its silly side.
Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
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