Tom and Brian Helgeland on portraying Ron Krayâs sexuality | I-D magÂ
âGender, sexuality, race, creed, it doesnât matter. You are what you are.â
Q: As a gay person, itâs interesting for me to see a multi-faceted gay man on screen especially when other previous films on the Krays have only hinted at his sexuality.
Helgeland: Well, itâs because its compelling in a way, itâs interesting, it makes him a fuller, richer person and itâs true, so it wasnât a hard decision.
Q: Hi Tom Hardy. How did it feel to play Ron as openly gay when other previous depictions have shied away from it?
Hardy: Well, he was openly gay. And there was some question as to Reggie, certainly in prison later in life. I donât know if he came out as such, but thereâs lots of questions about their sexuality. For this particular episode in Legend, about Ronnie being openly homosexual, it wasnât something he was embarrassed or shy about, it was something he was very straight about. He had a very ethical take on it as well, he would say, âIâm a homosexual, but Iâm not a poofâ whatever that means. Itâs another bracket of semantics that I couldnât fully comprehend that was very specific to Ronnieâs take on being gay.
Itâs interesting to see a character of that era depicted so aggressively masculine, when the acceptable face of gay men in the media was the camp Kenneth Williams type.
Hardy: Thereâs a convention that assimilates the concept of a homosexual male in the arts or character depiction as being camp as you say, but of course thereâs an awful lot of gay men who, for want of a better way of putting it, are âmachoâ or whatever. In the real world there is no such thing as a standard example of a gay man. I think itâs awesome to see the full spectrum of whatâs out there, both past, present and future. I was watching a brilliant documentary about a transgender navy seal who had the operation and went back to work at the White House. I mean thatâs the reality. Gender, sexuality, race, creed, it doesnât matter. You are what you are. Ronnie was a gangster and he happened to be homosexual. He wasnât playing a sexuality. In some ways he was more honest about himself than Reggie, he didnât have anything to hide from.
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