Tom Hardy is on a mission to save elephants and rhinos from poaching. They have never been in such danger

Tom Hardy with a mother and calf in Botswana; the actor tracked the poaching trade across southern Africa for a two-part ITV show (ITV)

THE SUNDAY TIMES

Oliver Thring Published: 18 August 2013

Tom Hardy makes a good living out of playing villains and hardmen in Hollywood movies. But, he says, “the thought of being eaten by a lion for dinner in the middle of the night while taking a piss has a certain anxiety”.

Hardy recently toured four southern African countries and filmed a two-part documentary, to be shown this week, about the poaching crisis stalking the continent. The trip had its dangers.

“The week before I went out,” he says, “what was left of one lad [after a lion attack] was put in a cooler box and sent home to his mum.” In South African townships, if you are accompanied by a camera crew with expensive equipment, “the atmosphere changes when the sun goes down. The odd machete-wielding glue-sniffer tends to raise the blood level.”


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