Tom Hardy turns into Frankie Pulitzer and raps Shakespeare with Bane voice

Take the voice of the masked villain in "The Dark Knight Rises," whose voice is muffled behind a metal filter, and read the "winter of our discontent" opening monologue from Shakespeare's "Richard III"—this is something Tom Hardy does in a rap album, not a movie outtake.

The album titled "Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer" was released on August 28 through Silver Age. It has 15 tracks in total and Tom Hardy participated in the performance under the pseudonym Frankie Pulitzer. Czarface is a rap group formed by Wu-Tang Clan member Inspectah Deck and underground group 7L & Esoteric. The album includes guest appearances by Busta Rhymes, Method Man and El-P.

The track "Grim-Visaged War" is the most direct actor Easter egg in the entire album: Tom Hardy uses Bane's voice to read a Shakespearean monologue, grafting the screen character's voice into the rap lyrics. "Raw Forever", another collaboration with Busta Rhymes, incorporates a scene from Nicolas Cage and Martin Scorsese's 1999 film "Bringing Out The Dead" - "I'm bringing out the dead like a paramedic out the Cage, directed by Marty", and then references Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin in 2002's Spider-Man, as well as the Marvel villain Doctor Doom.

The song "Mad Technology" turns to Stephen King's "Mad Dog" and "Thriller" and directly names Kathy Bates, who won the Oscar for "Thriller": "You shit-for-brain no-name lame, that bites like Cujo" "I'd rather masturbate to Kathy Bates than hear you flow / And you know that misery, it loves company."

This is not the first time that Tom Hardy has had a relationship with rap. He once recorded a mixtape titled "Falling On Your Arse In 1999" under the name Tommy No. 1. This recording was leaked to the Internet in 2018. In the same year, it was also reported that he was producing a grime album, but that plan was never followed up. As for Czarface, he has collaborated with Ghostface Killah in the past and also released two albums with the late MF DOOM. 2021's "Super What?" received a three-star rating from NME.

In addition to music, Harry Da Souza, the "solver" played by Tom Hardy, will return in the second season of "MobLand", which will premiere on September 18.