Austin Butler says he “learned a lot” from Tom Hardy on ‘The Bikeriders’

Timothée Chalamet recently praised his Dune: Part Two co-star Austin Butler in a GQ interview. Now, Butler is paying it forward, giving flowers to his Bikeriders co-star Tom Hardy.

Butler plays a protégé to Hardy’s gruff biker gang leader in the 1960s-set film. Speaking to Indiewire, Butler expresses how impressed he was with his co-star. “Tom Hardy surprised me,” the Elvis Oscar nominee admitted to his Dune: Part Two co-star and interviewer Josh Brolin.

He continues, “I pictured him to be this grizzly bear, always serious. And really, he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. He’d be joking around until action is called and then go into being the most intense guy I’d ever seen.”

Butler added to Brolin, “I learned a lot from Tom. It reminds me of you, where you can be in that relaxed place where you’re receptive to your environment, and then when the time comes, you can click into what the scene demands.”

Brolin praised Butler, too, noting, “This doesn’t happen very often…but a whole series of people told me, ‘You have to meet Austin…"”

He added, “[t]he anomaly factor is that you’re very, very good at what you do, and you’re young, which is a rarity, but then you’re kind, which is even more of a rarity. And then on top of it, you’re not a d******* actor who’s so into his art that he can’t be kind to anybody else, which I never understood.”

The Bikeriders was to hit theaters December 1, but opening has reportedly been delayed due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.

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