An actor playing two different characters in one film is quite common as far as superhero films are concerned. The same is the case with Sony Pictures’ Venom in which fans will see Tom Hardy playing Eddie Brock as well as his alter ego Venom who gets overpowered by an alien symbiote in the film.
During an interview with Entertainment Weekly at San Diego Comic-Con 20182 event, Tom Hardy revealed how he managed to double voice for Eddie Brock and the half-man, half-alien symbiote Venom all at the time of filming. He explained how the vocals for the two characters had to be laid down before setting the scene.
“Actually, the sound boys, [Patrick Anderson on sound playback and production sound mixer Michael B. Koff], they worked relentlessly to trigger [it] — I’d have to lay down the vocal for Venom in the morning and then play Eddie opposite in my earpiece, and whoever was working in the scene with me, had to hear Venom at the same time but then ignore that they’d heard Venom,” Hardy said.
The actor revealed that whenever he used to cue line as Eddie Brock, sound boy Patrick would hide somewhere under the stage and repeat Venom’s lines so that he could cut across him and talk and argue with the alien symbiote.
“And whenever I gave my cue line as Eddie Brock — this might not make any sense to anybody who’s not really techie and geeky about things like this like me — but Patrick would be under the stage queuing Venom accurately so I could cut across him and talk and argue with myself, and stuff like that,” Hardy added. “It’s a bit techie, it was fun. It was really, really good fun, and the sound boys, actually, to be fair, probably really play Venom. It’s my voice [laughs], but they play Venom.”
Venom director Ruben Fleischer was all praises for Hardy during the interview. He said it was quite impressive to see the actor managing two personalities in his head at one time.
“It’s a real testament to Tom’s talent [because] he had to play these two characters simultaneously and watching him manage both these personalities in his head at one time, just as a director, was so fun to see him acting literally opposite himself,” Fleischer said. “It’s really impressive.”
Hardy has experienced the same type of situation before when he played the role of identical twin brothers Reggie and Ron Kray in 2015 gangster drama Legend.
“It was more of the same stuff, when I did the Kray twins in Legend, that was again audio record of the brother who was gonna cause the most amount of damage in the room, so I would act the one who does the least amount of damage but then predict the damage that was coming, but the vocals had to be laid down before we set the scene,” the Venom actor explained.
He compared the shooting process to a Tetris puzzle.
“Which means all the other actors had to know what the person in the room was gonna do, who wasn’t in the room when we filmed it, and then we put a double in there, so it’s a little bit like some kind of Tetris puzzle. It’s very geeky [laughs]. But I really enjoyed it, and no, it’s less complicated than it seems.”
We will find out more about Venom when it arrives in theatres on Oct. 5, 2018.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
