Tom Hardy Has a Secret Rap Career — And Bane’s Got Bars

Before the world knew his face, Tom Hardy was trying to find his voice. Then Hollywood came calling, and the kid with the rap tapes became the man behind Bane’s mask, the man strapped into Mad Max’s muzzle, the man wearing the flight helmet in Dunkirk, and the man inside all of that Venom goo.

But somewhere beneath all those characters, all those voices, and all those masks, there was another voice in another mask, playing another character named Frankie P, aka Tommy Number One, aka Face Puller, aka Frankie Pulitzer.

So, who is Frankie Pulitzer? And why step behind another mask when everybody already knows your name? And what happens when a movie star returns to a dream that he had before the spotlight?

From the sinister bars in the song “Mad Technology” to a ridiculous rhyme book haunted by movie monsters, we are following Tom Hardy back to the microphone and exploring how a disguise can give a performer room to reveal himself.

So, it’s time to look at the rap career of Tom Hardy, because you know what?

Bane got bars, and he’s spitting Venom.

Is Frankie Pulitzer Really Tom Hardy?

But is that ill and dope MC really Oscar nominee Tom Hardy? Is that really him? This is the greatest mystery in hip-hop today, even though everybody pretty much knows the answer because, yeah, that’s totally Tom.

Still, his collaborators have enjoyed keeping the joke alive. Just ask Inspectah Deck about what it’s like rapping with Tom Hardy, and he’ll correct you: that’s not Tom Hardy. That’s Frankie Pulitzer, a different guy. And whoever he is, he can rap.

And so, yeah, he’s obviously most likely just talking about rap alter egos and how he’s probably just respecting that Tom Hardy doesn’t want his movie career to interfere with or influence the popularity of his rap career. He wants his raps to make it on their own.

But yeah, a lot of people are still asking, “Is that really Tom Hardy?” And why does one of the most recognizable actors in the world need another identity? And what is it about actors who want to rap and rappers who want to act?

So yeah, why is Tom Hardy doing this? To understand that, we need to rewind.

Tom Hardy Was Rapping Long Before He Was Famous

Before Bane, before Eddie Brock, before Bronson, Tom Hardy was just a teenager who was obsessed with hip-hop. He said that he started rapping around fourteen or fifteen and admitted that he wasn’t, you know, “good.” But, uh, yeah, I don’t know. I think he’s got some skills.

In 1999, he recorded with producer Ed Tracy under the names Tommy Number One and Eddie Too Tall. Their unfinished project, Falling on Your Arse in 1999, eventually surfaced online in 2018.

It was recorded in Ed Tracy’s bedroom, with a handheld tape recorder capturing Tom Hardy’s vocals. There was no elaborate studio operation here. Hardy had to get his takes right without the luxury of editing. So, yeah, this is just raw, pure, underground, independent hippity hippity hop.

At this time, there was also talk of an offer of a record deal. So, at this time, Tom Hardy actually had the choice: music or acting. And an agent steered Tom Hardy more towards acting instead.

And well, yeah, that advice worked out reasonably well. But the music never completely disappeared.

There are a few videos online of a young Tom Hardy rapping. There’s a short film that he made where he’s rapping. There’s a fun little video where he’s holding his baby son and he’s rapping. And while eating some hot wings, Shia LaBeouf told everybody that Tom Hardy loves to rap and is constantly busting out freestyles, and so does Jon Bernthal.

But yeah, years later, hip-hop came calling back to Tom again, and he found a home with Czarface.

Enter Czarface

Quick introduction: Czarface is a hip-hop supergroup that consists of Wu-Tang Clan’s Inspectah Deck, rapper Esoteric, and DJ/producer 7L.

Their world of hip-hop craziness is built from a hurricane homage of pop culture galore, with their intricate rhymes and visuals that are inspired by wrestling and genre movies, especially horror, and comic books, and the glorious weirdness of Saturday-morning cartoons.

These guys understand that a ridiculous reference and serious craftsmanship can occupy the same bar.

They’ve collaborated with Ghostface Killah and MF DOOM. Their hip-hop universe already has room for masked villains, alternate identities, and characters who sound like they escaped from Arkham Asylum.

So yeah, enter Frankie.

There were a few guest appearances, which gradually became something bigger, resulting in the album Czarface Meets Frankie Pulitzer, released on August 28, 2026, with appearances from Method Man, Busta Rhymes, and more.

The official description even presents Frankie as a character embedded in Czarface’s expanding mythology. He’s joining their universe as well as their record.

And Czarface actually has, you know, some movie-nerd credentials here. You can hear them on the Venom soundtrack, along with Frankie. And this hip-hop group even has a comic book. Like, they literally work with Marvel.

So yeah, the guy who plays Venom, Mad Max—it totally makes sense for these worlds to combine. And Esoteric even has, like, a cameo in Venom, I think, right? Like, that’s him right there, right?

“Mad Technology” Gets Everyone Talking

But then what got everybody talking, what got everybody noticing, what got everybody listening, was their track “Mad Technology.”

They made a video, put it on YouTube, and everyone was like, “That’s Tom Hardy. He’s rapping, and he’s actually—uh, yeah, he’s good. Good style, good delivery. Interesting lyrics.”

Frankie comes out spitting, telling everybody that he’s coming down the mountain carrying a combat knife, and he’s threatening jaws and eyeballs and the general well-being of everybody who’s foolish enough to challenge him.

These guys are treating this song like a rooftop rap battle against all of their opponents in the world. So yeah, their raps and their lyrics become a weapon, willing to fight off anyone who says they’re not the greatest rapper ever, telling their opponents that their rapping skills are so bad they should be punished.

And then, as he goes through the verse, Tom Hardy—I mean, Frankie Pulitzer—starts making some interesting movie references: Cujo, Kathy Bates, Misery, and possibly even It.

That’s three, maybe four, stops through Stephen King territory right there.

So, in this verse, Tom Hardy goes on to say, “Bites like Cujo,” which brings up, of course, the image of a rabid dog. But in hip-hop, apparently, biting also means copying somebody else’s style.

And then comes this outrageous wordplay: the Kathy Bates punchline, followed by “Misery, it loves company.”

Kathy Bates was in Misery. It was written by Stephen King. So was It. So was Cujo. You get it. The joke is deliberately crude, but the construction is clever.

Wrestling, Marvel and Spider-Man References

Next, his lyrics pin his opponent to the mat with a one, two, three. That’s a wrestling three-count—one, two, three—which fits nicely because, you know, he was in that movie Warrior.

Then he pulls out a Marvel reference—or, well, a Nordic mythology reference—when he speaks of Thor and suggests that defeating him, Frankie, is as easy as defeating the God of Thunder or Chris Hemsworth.

So, we’ve gone from Stephen King to wrestling to Marvel, and we’re still in the same verse.

Then he talks about cheese and freezer doors, saying that your rhymes are lame and his are ice-cold, which means cool, which is why they’re behind a freezer door.

But then he drops one of the most enjoyable references for movie fans when he says, “Sprinkle dope across the verse, shout to Shameik Moore.”

Moore starred in the movie Dope and voices Miles Morales in the Spider-Verse movies. And while Frankie says this, he is accompanied by some very Spider-Verse-like animated graphics.

So you’ve got the actor who plays Venom shouting out the actor who voices Spider-Man, Miles Morales. He literally spits Venom and then gives Miles Morales some love.

If you like movies, if you like comic books, if you like hip-hop, this is probably cool.

Then he ends it by saying that when somebody tries to take a photograph of him, he takes a detour, which is probably, you know, him avoiding the paparazzi, avoiding the fame, avoiding the celebrity, and just focusing on the hip-hop.

Then he holds up a pepper to the camera because he’s so spicy and hot, I guess.

Why Does Tom Hardy Keep Wearing Masks?

But yeah, choosing to wear a mask in this music video tells us something about Mr. Tom Hardy and how he feels about his face.

Because Hardy has spent an unusual amount of his screen career with something covering his face: Bane’s breathing apparatus, Mad Max’s steel muzzle, the oxygen mask in Dunkirk, and now Frankie’s disguise.

And yeah, maybe he chose all of these roles as statements against celebrity, but they’re also needed for the story and work for their own reasons.

Tom Hardy has spoken about the freedom a mask gives a performer. Covering the face changes how a character communicates, and it can loosen an actor’s inhibitions.

Think about Bane. You recognize him through posture and that extraordinary voice.

Playing the character of Frankie Pulitzer gives Tom Hardy another place to use those tools—no longer just in cinema, but also in hip-hop.

For us, the mask can also represent a little distance from the expectations attached to Tom Hardy, the movie star. When he’s wearing that thing, you hear the persona before you see a celebrity.

And, of course, the irony practically writes itself. It’s like what Bane said: “No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.”

But yeah, for Tom, people definitely cared who he was before he put this on. But now they’re listening differently, and that’s where acting and hip-hop can connect.

Where Acting and Hip-Hop Meet

Both involve timing and breath and presence and storytelling and knowing precisely how a line should land. A pause can make a threat convincing. A shift in speech pattern can reveal the joke. A voice can establish an entire character before you know anything about them.

And that doesn’t mean that every actor can rap and every rapper can act. But yeah, there are a lot of good rapper-actors out there. There’s a long history of artists carrying performance skills between the two: Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Marky Mark, and more.

When collaborating with Czarface, rappers are allowed and encouraged to lean further into playful pop-culture references. And Frankie definitely belongs in that space.

Just listen to the song “Raw Forever.”

In his lyrics, he references the Nicolas Cage movie Bringing Out the Dead, directed by Martin Scorsese. And then he says something about being somewhat of a scientist, like Willem Dafoe.

So yeah, you’ve got some Green Goblin in there. And Frankie goes on to say, “Goblin up crumbs.” So he keeps moving through the Goblin pun.

So yeah, once again, just take this in: Venom is now referencing another Spider-Man villain. Tom Hardy is breaking the cinematic multiverse through hip-hop.

And then he shouts out Dog Day Afternoon and mentions DC’s Sergeant Rock, and then brings us back to Marvel again with Doctor Doom, where he does some wordplay with “Victor,” you know, like “victor.” It doubles as a reference to Victor von Doom.

And these aren’t just funny, familiar titles dropped between lines. These are names and characters that become part of the wordplay.

Frankie Pulitzer’s Tom Hardy Easter Eggs

Also on the new album, there’s a song called “Frankie,” and he throws some marvelous imagery in there and, like, totally brings his alter ego to life while also making plenty of Tom Hardy movie references.

In this song, he mentions the Kray twins, whom Tom Hardy played in the movie Legend, followed by him saying that he is the Revenant. And this Revenant reference fits because he is an artist bringing an early creative life back out of the shadows.

There are plenty of other songs where the self-references go even further. Like on the song “The Czarlaac Pit,” he revisits the “proper shootout” speech from the movie Legend. And then he goes on to talk about Mombasa, inviting a connection to Inception.

And on the song “Grim-Visaged War,” the performance connection becomes wonderfully obvious when Tom Hardy—I mean, Frankie Pulitzer—starts spitting Shakespeare’s Richard III, of course, delivered in the Bane voice.

Bane’s Got Bars

And that’s what makes Tom Hardy interesting as a rapper and as an actor. He’s always playing around with his voice. Like, there are songs that he just does with a New York accent. Then he goes back to his English accent, and then he does another voice or another type of scream.

And what makes Frankie interesting is the commitment: his commitment to changing his voice, his commitment to the character, to the references, to the humor, and his willingness to create inside somebody else’s creative world.

Like, this is Czarface meets Frankie. And yeah, the meeting’s going well.

His Hollywood résumé gets our attention, but the work, his raps, his lyrics—they earn the repeat listen.

And that’s the story of Frankie and Tom. Just a teenager making rap tapes. And then acting takes over. Decades later, that early enthusiasm becomes a new outlet, a new character, a new mask.

And that mask gives that character a face of its own. And beneath it, we can hear somebody enjoying the chance to play.

An artist trying something new, yet revisiting something old at the same time. Using nothing but his favorite acting tools—his mind, his mouth, his mask—to cover his face and erase the movie-star image, making us completely forget about the celebrity, hiding Tom so we only see Frankie.

And you know what? As the kids these days say, it’s dope.

Tom Hardy has spent years making characters feel alive. Now Frankie Pulitzer gets his turn.

And you know what? I’ll be listening because, well, Bane’s got bars when he’s spitting Venom.

And this time, it’s the beat that’s taking a beating.