Born in Hammersmith, London, in 1977 and growing up in East Sheen, Hardy comes from a comfortable background; his father, Chips Hardy, was a comedy writer and is currently a creative director for the JWT advertising agency, and his mother Anne is a painter. With creative blood clearly running through his veins, he was always more likely to be drawn to a career in the arts, but Hardy was a wayward youth who struggled to make the most of his education: I went to public school where I learned Latin at the age of nine, and certain expectations were made of me to go to St Pauls, Oxbridge maybe, and all that kind of thing. And I failed systematically to meet the mark. Hardy was expelled from Reeds School for theft, and then kicked out of Richmond Drama School for, as he put it, being a little sh*t. He also failed to complete his studies at Drama Centre London, though at least this time it was due to being cast in Steven Spielbergs Band of Brothers, and Hardy seemed to gravitate towards anything bar the academic in his formative years.
I watch movies and I watch sport. I also watch movies about sport, and if there were a sport about movies I'd watch that too. The internet was the closest thing I could find.
