Thought you knew Tom Hardy? Apparently he has a secret rap career now

If you'd told me a decade ago that Tom Hardy would one day be wading into hip-hop under a not-so-mysterious alter ego, I'd have rolled my eyes. Yet here we are in 2026, with the bloke most famous for wearing masks on screen sporting yet another—only this time, it's in the rap game, and the mask is called Frankie Pulitzer. Let’s be honest, everyone knows it’s Hardy, but the man’s clearly having a laugh and running with it.

From Tommy Number One to Masked MC

Before Hardy was the burly chap behind Bane's respirator, Mad Max's muzzle, or stuck behind that oxygen mask in Dunkirk, he was a teen who fancied himself a rapper. He started spitting bars at fifteen, fully aware he wasn’t a prodigy—he described himself as “not good” in those early days, though having now heard some tapes, he's definitely got more than a bit of flow.

Back in 1999, Hardy was recording DIY rap tracks with Ed Tracy, using the names Tommy Number One and Eddie Too Tall. The project, aptly titled Falling on Your Arse in 1999, sat in a drawer for nearly twenty years before surfacing in 2018. No fancy studio—just a bedroom, a dodgy handheld tape recorder, and the requirement to get it right first time. There was even talk of a record deal back then before the acting bug and a well-meaning agent pushed him toward drama school and everything that followed.

Falling on Your Arse in 1999 finally leaked online in 2018, almost two decades after Hardy and Tracy laid it down in a bedroom studio.

The music never went away entirely. There’s the odd grainy video of Hardy rapping—including one where he’s cradling his baby—or mates like Shia LaBeouf and Jon Bernthal spilling that Hardy’s always the first to freestyle on set. Fast-forward and he’s found his way back to the mic alongside hip-hop eccentrics Czarface.

Enter Czarface and Frankie Pulitzer

Let’s do introductions. Czarface is what you get if you blend Inspectah Deck from Wu-Tang Clan, Esoteric, and DJ/producer 7L. It’s a madcap world obsessed with comics, wrestling, 80s films, and the kind of Saturday-morning cartoon weirdness that seems tailor-made for someone like Hardy. In their universe, masked personas and pop culture in-jokes are currency. They’ve worked with Ghostface Killah, MF DOOM, and now, thanks to Hardy’s alter ego, there’s Frankie Pulitzer in the mix.

What started as a few low-key guest spots quickly grew into something bigger: the full-length album Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer, out 28 August 2026. Guest stars? Only heavyweights: Method Man, Busta Rhymes, the lot. Czarface have genuine film-nerd clout too—listen for them (and Frankie) on the Venom soundtrack, plus they’ve even got an official Marvel comic. Esoteric even pops up in a Venom cameo (so I’m told).

For the sort of fan who wants to spot every link, there’s a nice bit of Hollywood circularity—Venom spitting verses next to the Spider-Verse crowd. Surreal, but sort of inevitable the way Hardy keeps picking up masks and running with new identities.

“Mad Technology” and the Art of References

It was the single “Mad Technology” that really got people talking. The video dropped on YouTube, and there was Hardy (well, ‘Frankie’), masked up, trading rapid-fire lines about combat, horror films, pop culture… the sort of thing that has music nerds and movie obsessives rewinding to catch every nod.

Here’s how Czarface’s Inspectah Deck once described rapping alongside Hardy: “That’s not Tom Hardy. That’s Frankie Pulitzer, a different guy.”

Frankie rips through Stephen King shoutouts—Cujo, Misery, It—and throws in wordplay about biting (as in ‘copying’ your flow). He lands punchlines with references to Kathy Bates and drops in wrestling metaphors (“one, two, three” for the count-out—hardly subtle, but perfectly on-brand). Not content with that, he pivots to Marvel, implying he’s harder to beat than Thor, and then gets all Spider-Verse by giving a nod to Shameik Moore (voice of Miles Morales).

Venom hyping up Spider-Man’s voice actor, while the visuals lean into full animation mode—trust Hardy to drag the supervillain/MC crossover into genuinely nerdy territory. And then, naturally, he warps it all back round to his own tabloid-skirting relationship with the camera, dodging fame with the same ease he dodges harsh lights on a film set. If you’re after movie references and comic nerdery with your hip-hop, you’re spoilt here.

Why the Relentless Mask-Wearing?

Let’s face it, Hardy’s spent half his career with his mouth covered: Bane, Mad Max, Dunkirk—the guy could launch a balaclava range. It’s no coincidence. He’s talked about how covering the face frees up a performer, letting his voice and physicality do the work. For Hardy, it’s just as true in music as on screen: put on the mask, and suddenly it’s about the persona, not the celebrity. It’s the anti-fame move that somehow makes him even more of a cult figure.

Acting, Rapping, and the Blurred Lines

Not every actor who fancies themselves a rapper should actually drop a mixtape, but the crossover isn’t new—Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, even Mark Wahlberg (in his Marky Mark era) managed both hats. For Hardy, you can hear the acting toolkit at work in every line: timing, delivery, comic swerve, and the kind of daft voices he’s always delivered (sometimes New York, sometimes straight London, sometimes just bonkers for its own sake).

When Hardy—sorry, Frankie—links up with Czarface, the references fly. On “Raw Forever”, he pivots from Nicolas Cage’s Bringing Out the Dead to riffing on Goblin jokes straight from Willem Dafoe. Doctor Doom, Sergeant Rock, Dog Day Afternoon—all in the span of a verse. Frankie is Venom’s MC, but he doesn’t just want to be the punchline for his own filmography; he’s gleefully skewering it.

He even references his own roles: the Kray twins from Legend, nodding to The Revenant, reworking the “proper shootout” line from Legend on “The Czarlaac Pit”, and then going full Bane-voice with Shakespeare on “Grim-Visaged War”. Shakespeare-influenced rap in a Batman villain voice—nobody else is making these sorts of career choices, and you have to respect the madness.

Bane’s Got Bars

It’s all in good fun. The commitment to the bit, the sharp left turns into pop culture, movie in-jokes, and, sometimes, deeply silly delivery—it all means Hardy’s not just keeping up, he’s pushing the oddball rap thing to its limits. If his famous face makes you click, it’s Frankie’s punchlines that make you stay.