Ben Hardy is ready to step into adulthood
After leaving EastEnders in 2015, Ben Hardy has been building up a steady, decade-long career orbiting young male characters in their early 20s. Now, with the release of the tender queer drama Unicorns, where he plays a single dad, he’s ready to fully embrace his 30s on screen.
Ben Hardy is ready to be 30. On screen, at least. In real life, he hit that milestone three years ago, in the throws of a pandemic-induced “quarter-life crisis”.
While, at 33, he may have already reckoned with the agonising trauma of running out of railcard options, the characters he plays largely haven’t. With his mess of blond hair, boyish glint and, by his own admission, “babyface”, he’s been comfortably orbiting roles about guys in their early 20s on the precipice of adulthood for more than a decade now.
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Having started his career being blasted into living rooms four times a week on EastEnders as Peter Beale, he’s barely stopped working since he left the soap. There was his immediate next role in X-Men: Apocalypse as the character Archangel; the object of affection in the 2023 romcom Love at First Sight; and, of course, playing Roger Taylor in the Oscar-winning Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. His filmography is diverse in genre and tone, but the connective tissue often relies on his ability to read young.
“I think there are more interesting parts for men in their 30s,” he says at the tail-end of his Gentleman’s Journal photoshoot at a studio in North London. “[And] I’ve struggled to get those roles, but I find them interesting as an actor. You see a lot of young characters in their late teens or early 20s. And then there’s a lot of men in their 30s, 40s or 50s. But that sort of like late 20s, early 30s, there’s not many of them.”
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Perhaps it’s down to that strange grey area that your early 30s provide. When you’re not as young as you think, but also not the vision of an adult you had in your head. Hardy says, in many ways, he still feels 18, although maybe that’s because scripts keep flying across his desk that imply he could be.
His latest film, queer drama Unicorns, provided a taste of what those older roles might look like. He stars as Luke, a struggling single dad who, after a chance encounter with a South Asian drag queen named Aysha, played by the magnetic Jason Patel, embarks on a tender and trepidacious romance. Luke is a young dad, the father to five-year-old Jamie at the age of just 27, but he reads like a man burdened by decades of pressure.
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“I always like to do something movement-wise to feel some sense of other,” Hardy says, but Unicorns required more than slight changes in mannerisms. Hardy shaved his head and packed on pounds of muscle and bulk to physically morph into a man uncomfortable with the masculinity he’s been saddled with. “Luke is a bit of an alpha male within his community,” says Hardy. “The way he walks, I wanted it to be like he’s carrying this heavy burden on his shoulders and [that you] feel that weight in the way that he moves.
The effect is visceral. Hardy lumbers as Luke, physically uncomfortable in his own skin and in the space it takes up until, thread by thread, he’s unravelled by the experience of knowing Aysha. Did living in the vulnerable world of Unicorns leave a mark on him? “It made me think I’m going to have to have kids now,” he jokes.
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Unicorns is the latest string to the bow of a career which, on the face of it, reads like a series of deliberate choices to never do the same thing twice. That’s probably why he says he’s recognised less out and about now than in his early soap days – people can never really place where they know him from. Between pure Michael Bay action pulp in 6 Underground to erotic thriller The Voyeurs starring Sydney Sweeney, there’s not much Hardy hasn’t done.
“I want to do a horror movie at some point,” he says. “But it’s got to be the right one, that’s the problem. It’s got to be Blumhouse-style and proper good.” He also has musical aspirations like his self-confessed favourite film of all time, The Greatest Showman. “I actually watched it again the other night,” he laughs. “I think it was my eighth time,” he adds without even a hint of sheepishness. “If I went on The X Factor, it would never be like, ‘Oh my God’,” he responds when asked about his ability to carry a note. “But I hold a tune. Acting through song, I think I could do.”
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That provides a good shorthand at least for the most coveted role of his life. After riding the wave as one-fourth of Queen, his sights are set on another 80s star. “I want to be George Michael in a biopic,” he says with determination. “Is there a better voice that’s ever existed?” In terms of characters with a life lived, it’s hard to imagine navigating someone with more substance to sink your teeth into, or someone with a more tumultuous and exciting 30s. It could be the role Hardy has been waiting for. Though, he might have to start getting used to being stopped in the street again if it materialises.
This feature was taken from our Summer 2024 issue. Read more about it here.
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