YouTubeIt's not hard to talk to Tom Hardy.
However, he bristled when, in the midst of a press conference at the Toronto International Film Festival, a reporter from LGBT news outlet Daily Xtra asked if it's "hard for celebrities to talk to the media about their sexuality." Days after the Legend actor shut him down, he spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the uncomfortable exchange that went viral. "That really, really annoyed me. It was just the inelegance of being asked in a room full of people. […] Now I'm happy to have a conversation, a discussion, at a reasonable time about anything. I'm confident in my own sexuality, and I'm also confident in my own being and talking about any issue you want to talk about it. But there is a time and a place for that."
Regarding what transpired Sunday, Hardy admitted, "I found it very humiliating for somebody to decide that on his dime and his time, to openly and inelegantly pursue a line of questioning which I could only sense at the moment—which was quite awkward—that it was zeroing in on a reaction from me that would become a topic of discussion that had nothing to do really, really to do with what was there."
In 2008, Hardy purportedly gave an interview to Attitude magazine in which he was asked if he ever had any sexual relations with men. "As a boy? Of course I have," he supposedly said. "I'm an actor for f--k's sake. I'm an artist. I've played with everything and everyone. But I'm not into men sexually." The quotes went viral in 2010, and when asked about his sexuality after, Hardy said he is straight. Regardless, Daily Xtra's Graeme Coleman referenced the alleged quotes on Sunday.
Hardy is used to fielding questions about his sexuality by this point in his career. Rather, he was bothered the manner in which he was asked about it Sunday. "It's so important to the LGBT [community] that people actually feel safe about their sexuality and are able to speak freely and not be stigmatized or feel like they are being pointed out," he said. "Why point me out, assuming that I'm gay because I'm ambiguous about it, which I'm very clear if you look into what I've said in the past."
Hardy said he pities Coleman, whom he doesn't believe meant any harm.
"I'm quite sensitive and I feel like I've let people down for something that I actually didn't ask for, for something that's important to a lot of people," he told Entertainment Weekly. "Should I come out of the closet when I'm not in one? I ought to maybe come out of the closet, even though that's a lie, to do the right thing. Or, if I say no, then I'm homophobic? Bless him. He's young. But at the same time, it left me feeling like I have to do something about that. And it's like why? Whose business is it anyway and isn't that the point?"