Watch a Double Shot of Tom Hardy as Gangster Twins in 'Legend' Trailer

In Legend, Tom Hardy plays real-life identical twins and infamous London gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray. It was a role originally intended for two different actors, writer-director Brian Helgeland tells Yahoo Movies. But after one dinner, Hardy convinced the filmmaker, telling him he needed to play both parts.

The Kray twins ran the East End during the height of the swinging '60s. In spite of their many crimes — including armed robberies, arson, and even murder — the twins became celebrities, hanging out with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.

As you can see in the exclusive first stateside trailer above, Hardy effortlessly plays the dual roles. But how he did it is a little more complex. Luckily Helgeland, who won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay for L.A. Confidential (1997), phoned us up to explain how his leading man juggled two very different roles and managed to fight himself:

Tom Hardy can bring this unique dimension to misguided, even evil characters — in films like Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises, and now in Legend. Why do you think this is?
He’s really a true actor. He’s looking for the part to play. Most movie stars have a persona. You get the same guy over and over again, it’s a comfort zone. They figure out what it is their audience wants to see out of them and deliver it. That’s what makes a movie star in a lot of ways. Tom, I don’t think, has an interest in that. He’s all about the character. There are these wild swings in what he does. He’s very much a chameleon, never plays the same guy twice. That makes him hard to pin down. … Even when he’s a protagonist, it’s a character performance he’s looking to do, really.

The irony in that is I got the best of both worlds because of the character of Ron Kray is, in the world of crime, one of the great characters of all time. He’s so outrageous. Because [Tom] got to play Ron, it made it OK for him to play Reggie who’s much straighter. What was exciting for me was I wanted Reggie, on the surface, to be more of a classic leading man movie star, which Tom is not really interested in playing that. But in this case he played it because it’s a counterpoint to the other brother. He was handsome and dashing, and all those things he generally avoids.

And he can fight.
He’s very serious about that stuff. I am, too, but not to the degree he is. I think the physicality of a character is part of how he expresses who the character is, so he doesn’t want to end up in some generic fight scene. Both brothers have their own style in approaching violence. That’s as important to him as bringing the person to life as anything else that he has to do.

We went through weeks and weeks of rehearsals to get a move down so it could be played for real when we were going at it. There’s a scene where he fights himself, or the brothers fight, I should say. His stuntman Jacob Tomuri — they know each other from Mad Max: Fury Road — that morning when we were going to roll, Tom came up to me and asked, “How many takes do you think you’re going to do?” Which he never asked me ever. I said, “Why you want to know?” He said, “Well, because we’re going to be really hitting each other. [laughs] So I need to know so we can pace ourselves.” I said, “In that case I would say three takes.” He goes, “Oh good! Three takes we can go for it on each take.” It was three takes and they really hit each other. I’m terrified Tom’s going to have his nose broken in the middle of a take.

How did you wind up casting Hardy?
My initial instinct was to get two guys to play the brothers. Reggie’s the lead. I knew I had to cast Reggie first whether same actor or not… Tom was on the top of the list for Reggie. He read it right away — I was in London at the time — and we had dinner. Casting two guys means you’re tied in to having guys who look similar. I figured I’d try to get Tom for Reggie then worry about someone you’d believe as his twin brother. He was talking about both brothers. He was very familiar with them as most people over there are. And about halfway through dinner as I was listening to him and looking at him, I was starting to think he could pull off playing both. I was also initially worried about that because I didn’t want it to be a gimmick. On one hand it’s exciting but you don’t want it to be swallowed up by that conceit. I thought he could pull it off because he has such a take on both of them. At the end of dinner he preempted me. He said, “I’m in. I want to play Reggie but I’ll only do it if I can play Ron also.” Right on the spot I said, “That’s a deal.” And we were off and running from there trying to figure out how to do it.

How did Hardy shift from one twin to the other while filming?
He went, from hour to hour, he would be one or the other. There were exceptions, but he usually Reggie during the first part of the day because it was the bigger part. Then many days Ron didn’t work at all. But if it was the two of them, Tom and I would rehearse in the morning and he’d read both parts and we’d work out blocking. He’d record Ron’s side of the dialogue, give it to sound guy who’d cut it together in a way he could fit his Reggie dialogue in between his Ron dialogue. Then he’d go off to hair and makeup and come back. He would wear an earpiece that no one could see. We would play Ron in his ear. His stunt man was his body double for Reggie and Ron so he could have someone in front of him to look at. Then we’d play back Reggie’s recording in his ear when he was playing Ron.

Why Legend — and not the plural — Legends?
First of all, it’s about Reggie, really, more than Ron. They’re part of legend as far as lore and legend go, like the legend of Robin Hood or the legend of King Arthur. The legend of the Kray twins fits right in there. … It’s hard to know what’s true or untrue about them. ln some ways this is my version of the legend. I hope through all the research I did, that it’s a closer version to the truth.

I take it you went beyond The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins — the book on which Legend is based?
The book is reportage. It’s just the facts of where they were born and this and that. It draws some conclusions about twins. It’s very keen on twins being in tune with each other, which I didn’t find to be the case from the people I talked to. It was helpful for the timeline of when things happen. I did an enormous amount of research before I wrote the script as far as meeting a dozen or so people who knew them. And reading every book I could get my hands on — even the cheapest most dime-store book. It was interesting to see where they all overlapped.

Legend opens in theaters Oct. 2.

See the poster for 'Legend’: