10 Things You Didn't Know About Tom Hardy

By Jonathan Cordiner /

9. He Was A Model

Remember The Big Breakfast, the €˜wacky€™ Channel 4 light entertainment show from the 1990s? The light-hearted weekday-morning staple turned Chris Evans into a star, launched the careers of Gaby Roslin and Denise Van Outen and, rather regrettably, unleashed Zig and Zag on a wider audience. The Big Breakfast became the UK€™s highest-rated breakfast TV programme, and a certain Simon Cowell must have been watching €“ you can blame him for the brief pop career of the alien duo, among other atrocities.Someone else who must have tuned in around then was a young Tom Hardy, as in 1998 he participated in the show€™s Find Me a Supermodel competition €“ and won. Along with a cash prize, Hardy was awarded a professional contract with the agency Models One, but he soon realised he felt more comfortable in the field of acting: €œI tried to be a model when I was 19 and I was sh*t. I can only function if I become someone else.€