Actor Ben Hardy covers the latest issue of Something About Time – find out how to get your copy below.
Hardy opened up to Scarlett Baker at Something About Rocks about an autumn that saw him appear in one of the biggest horror franchises of all time – The Conjuring – as well his favourite watches and cinema heroes.
Hardy told us how he wanted to always be in a horror movie, but that it always “had to be the right one.”. Hardy landed a part in one of the highest grossing and acclaimed horror franchises of all time and in autumn this year, the final outing in the series, The Conjuring: Last Rites. “I consider myself very fortunate to be part of this franchise,” he told us. “I’ve become even more of a horror fan since being in the movie.”
He continued: “I always think of horror more as escapism. It’s so engaging, and it brings us so much into our primitive state of survival: fight or flight. The adrenaline can really be flowing through your body during a horror movie which is why I think a lot of people don’t like it because it makes them feel too engaged with that primordial self when they just want to relax. But I think a lot of films are about engaging with those primal emotions, and horror captures that and really has the power to transport you and take you out of your everyday life and keep you on the edge of your seat.”
He also reflected on his past achievements in films including Bohemian Rhapsody and X-Men.
On Bohemian Rhapsody, in which he played Queen drummer Roger Taylor, it says it was his proudest moment: “For it to come out and [do as well as it did] was incredible. More so than for the [fact] it won awards and all those kinds of things – but it was the amount of joy that movie brought to so many people. That makes me feel proud for sure, to be a part of something like that.”
On X-Men: Apocalypse, he also talked about the advice that Michael Fassbender gave him after a particularly challenging day on set.
He explained: “I was so nervous,” he recalls.
“And so tense because I had major imposter syndrome – like ‘how am I here?’ I remember I messed up: I laughed, because someone made me laugh on set, and then I stopped. Michael Fassbender was like ‘you should have used it‘ and that kind of stuck with me. It freed me up a lot at a young age because I was like, ‘I’m just going to keep playing, keep exploring.’
“In that moment I could have used that laugh and played with it and done something with it, but instead I stopped and restarted the take. It stuck with me. Michael Fassbender is phenomenal. He’s one of my favourite actors.”
He also opened up about some of his favourite watches, not least Cartier. “It’s gorgeous,” he notes of the Cartier watch he wears for our cover shoot. “I would love to get a watch much like this Cartier Santos, and have it passed down in the family. I’m very family-orientated and I have a watch of my dad’s that I love too.” He also has his eye on a Piaget, fawning over the one he’s wearing for the shoot today.
To read the full feature in the issue, you can buy a copy here.
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