Tom Hardy: 'I would sell my mother for crack'

Tom Hardy has spoken out about a drink and drug addiction which almost killed him. The actor became an addict after his film Star Trek: Nemesis flopped in 2002 and his habit cost him his marriage. "I went entirely off the rails and I'm lucky I didn't have some terrible accident or end up in prison or dead - because that's where I was going," he told the Guardian. "Now I know my beast and I know how to manage it. It's like living with a 400lb orang-utan that wants to kill me. It's much more powerful than me, doesn't speak the same language and it runs around in the darkness of my soul. "I would sell my mother for a rock of crack." The rising star from East Sheen, who's now back on track, is currently starring as criminal Freddie Jackson in Sky1's The Take, which continues on Wednesday. Watch a trailer below...

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.