Patrick Stewart Admits How Tom Hardy Proved Him Wrong After Star Trek: Nemesis

After his work with Tom Hardy in 2002's "Star Trek: Nemesis," venerable actor Patrick Stewart was convinced he'd seen the first and last of the future film and television star.

"Star Trek: Nemesis" was the last of four film trips for Stewart and his "Star Trek: The Next Generation" cast, where his iconic character, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, faces off against Hardy's Praetor Shinzon, a clone of Picard. Tom Hardy — whose nude "Star Trek" audition tape landed him the huge movie role — was a relative unknown to audiences at the time with only a handful of credits, including supporting turns in the TV miniseries "Band of Brothers" and the war film "Black Hawk Down."

Stewart writes about his career in his new book "Making It So: A Memoir," which includes some pointed observations about Hardy and the underwhelming "Star Trek" film on which he first encountered the actor. "'Nemesis,' which came out in 2002, was particularly weak," Stewart writes (via Insider). "I didn't have a single exciting scene to play, and the actor who portrayed the movie's villain, Shinzon, was an odd, solitary young man from London. His name was Tom Hardy." Stewart didn't come close to establishing the rapport with Hardy that he enjoyed with his fellow "Next Generation" actors, who worked together for seven seasons on TV from 1987 to 1994 before embarking on their film series.

In his memoir, "Making It So," Patrick Stewart notes that Tom Hardy essentially kept to himself when the cameras weren't rolling during the filming of "Star Trek: Nemesis," even going so far as to bypass the simple pleasantries associated with work. "Tom wouldn't engage with any of us on a social level," Stewart writes in his tome. "Never said, 'Good morning,' never said, 'Goodnight,' and spent the hours he wasn't needed on set in his trailer with his girlfriend. He was by no means hostile — it was just challenging to establish any rapport with him."

In fact, Hardy was so disengaged that Stewart believed the actor wouldn't have a career after "Nemesis" — which the Picard actor is happy to admit is not the case. "On the evening Tom wrapped his role, he characteristically left without ceremony or niceties, simply walking out of the door," Stewart writes. "As it closed, I said quietly to [co-stars] Brent [Spiner] and Jonathan [Frakes], 'And there goes someone I think we shall never hear of again.' It gives me nothing but pleasure that Tom has proven me so wrong."

Including "Nemesis," Hardy has amassed more than 60 screen credits, including key roles in writer-director Christopher Nolan's blockbuster films "Inception," "The Dark Knight Rises," and "Dunkirk." In addition, Hardy has starred in such hits as "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Venom," and "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" and earned a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for his menacing turn opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the period drama "The Revenant."