Tom Hardy Once Wrestled With A Director During This Oscar-Winning Movie

Alejandro Iñárritu's "The Revenant" starred two actors in a revenge story on the American frontier during the 19th century. The shoot reportedly got as gloomy as the film itself, and as such, Tom Hardy made it his responsibility to enliven the mood whenever possible.

According to several witnesses, describing the production of "The Revenant" as a strenuous exercise will be an understatement. From the uncooperative weather to scenes that had to be halted to accommodate the director's campaign for "Birdman" to Leonardo DiCaprio vomiting after eating the liver of a wild bison, one thing was clear; the shoot was a grueling one.

Despite being one of the most inventive and aesthetically pleasing films in recent history, "The Revenant" pushed the actors involved to their limits. The "Inception" actor recalled getting the flu several times due to the freezing temperatures. At one point, he turned to the dead body of an animal for more warmth.

The production was agog with the tension between Hardy and director Alejandro González Inarritu. Per EW, Hardy relayed how some of Inarritu's idiosyncrasies of filmmaking made him very mad.

"He's unlike any director I've ever worked with," Hardy explained. "He sees things how he sees them, so to give him back what he wants is quite an interesting experience. It could drive you f***** nuts."

Because of this, the actor frequently found himself at loggerheads with his director. Hardy devised a rather unorthodox method as the solution to lessen the tension.

"When things get a bit too serious, I go, 'Why don't we have a cuddle in front of all these people here?'" Hardy recalled. "It ends with both of us falling in the snow. I think that's a good thing. If I'm the naughty boy for doing that, then I'd rather be the naughty boy and release that tension."

This unconventional approach amused his co-actors and the rest of the crew so much that they made T-Shirts depicting the incident. However, despite the scuffle, neither side had hard feelings. "On the surface, he can look inaccessible or difficult," the director spoke of Hardy. "But he is just a beautiful human being. He's incredibly sensitive and lovable."

Hardy also jocularly compared his director to a famous character. "He had the affability to me of the donkey from Shrek, and I'm Shrek," noted Hardy.

There have been allegations following Hardy that he's hard to work with. During the production of "Mad Max Fury Road," his co-star Charlie Theron attested to constant unnecessary arguments. In his defense, Hardy alluded the tension to the pressure of the movie.

"It was the isolation and the fact that we were stuck in a rig for the entire shoot," Theron said. "We shot a war movie on a moving truck—there's a tiny green screen. It was like a family road trip that just never went anywhere. We never got anywhere. We just drove."

On the other hand, he admitted that all the rumors about him being difficult to work with were true.

"I have a reputation for being difficult. And I am. I am, actually," Hardy told E! News. "But I'm not unreasonable. It used to be that if somebody hurt me, I'd lash out a bit to get them to stop. It ultimately comes from fear."

Hardy eventually learned that he couldn't constantly lash out at people to keep his career.

"If I cause enough of a mess, then people will never ask me again to do something I don't want to do," Hardy added. "But that sort of backfires after a while, so you don't want to do that. You grow up."

It will appear that the fight Hardy relayed wasn't all fun and games. Per Independent, a Reddit user who claimed to be on the same set as the actor shared a different and darker side of events.

"That's not what happened," the Reddit user said in a rebuttal to Hardy's claims. "Hardy got pissed off in an argument with Inarritu and choked him out. It was a serious fight, and when they made up afterward, they were good enough to goof about it and took that picture. My boss was on the crew. I took that picture. (Must have made the internet rounds)."

"The Revenant" is a 2015 American Western movie directed by Iñárritu. The film, written by Mark L. Smith and Iñárritu, is based partly on Michael Punke's 2002 titular novel.

The movie features Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy as lead actors.

The movie initially debuted at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on December 16, 2015. It had a limited release nine days later and a wide release the following month.

The film became a blockbuster that grossed $533 million worldwide. It received mostly positive appraisal, with an appreciation for the performances, particularly for DiCaprio and Hardy, Iñárritu's directing skill, and Lubezki's cinematography.