Matt Patches: Creating your character...everyone appears to have a complicated back story and you sense that in
the movie without anyone explicitly explaining it. Was there a lot of back
story that you got from Chris or that you were able to develop yourself?
 
 Tom Hardy: Both
really. Chris had masterminded the entire operation. When reading Inception and getting to the end of it, and feeling like I understood, but realizing at
the same time it doesn't matter how much I understand. The only way I'm going
to understand this is talking to Chris Nolan and devote everything toward
whatever he wanted me to do. We had a discussion about feedback, what sort of
person he wanted my character to be. I felt that he was along the lines of an
old, Graham Greene-type diplomat. Sort of faded, shabby, grandeur the old
Shakespeare lovey mixed with somebody from her Majesties' Special Forces.
Then the Forger, which is very important, is someone who
creates...in the same way people create and forge documents and passports to oil
paintings. I just had to look into that. He agreed with me, also having some James Bond in there too. And as soon as he gave me that I said, "brilliant!" 
 And then the costumes were like a peacock...campy, old money.
Like a traveler, very savvy person.
Matt Patches:  I think you summed that up perfectly
when you called Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "darling."
Tom Hardy: Yeah,
yeah, I don't think that was originally in the script.
Matt Patches:
Really? That's amazing. I was curious about the lighter, comedic elements in
the movie, most of which stem from your character. Was in the script or if
there was a lot of improvisation?
Tom Hardy: Mmm, ever so slightly. I would never stray from somebody's
script, absolutely not. Chris Nolan... every comma, punctuation mark, he designed
it and it wasn't  for me to go in
there and reshape it. It's a very large piece of machinery. The "darling" part
was accidental. I came out with "darling" and we kept it in because it was
funny, but we did plenty of them without "darling." I felt comfortable on
set...we were having fun. It's very kind of him to have kept it in. We were
having fun.