The True Story Behind Shia LaBeouf And Tom Hardy's On-Set Fight

Back in 2012, Tom Hardy co-starred in the movie Lawless with Shia LaBeouf. The movie was a solid outing for both actors, but the most interesting item to come out of the project was the report that the two actors got into a fight on the set. John Hillcoat was the director of the film, and he’s now come out to say that the fight did happen, though any rumors that Tom Hardy was taken down were greatly exaggerated.

John Hillcoat is the director behind the new film Triple 9, and as part of his promotion for his new project, he recently took part in an AMA on Reddit. During the online interrogation, Hillcoat was asked about the rumor that Tom Hardy was actually knocked out on the set of Lawless by Shia LaBeouf. Hillcoat did confirm the altercation, but not the result. 

There was definitely a fight between them. It escalated to the point where they had to both be restrained. But I was very pleased to hear it didn't go that way because I would hate to see the outcome.

Tom Hardy himself had been the one that said he’d been "knocked out," though to be fair, the way he said it made it sound like he was screwing with people, indicating the ridiculousness of the idea that he would have been put down by Shia LaBeouf. From what John Hillcoat says here, it sounds like the two may have been separated before the altercation ever actually came to blows. We’d have to say we agree with Hillcoat that the outcome would not have been pretty. We don’t want to take anything away from LaBeouf but Tom Hardy is a pretty big dude, and Shia...is not. Here’s the movie in question.

We can’t imagine what would have led the two to almost get in a physical altercation. Ok, actually we can. Shia LaBeouf has had an interesting career of late, made up of odd performance-art pieces and strange viral videos as much as it has him acting in movies. A couple years ago, the actor was arrested after allegedly harassing a homeless man for hours. This surprised literally nobody. We can’t imagine what led the former Even Stevens actor to pull something like that, but if LaBeouf got in Tom Hardy’s face in a similar way, we can only image how Hardy would have responded.

Whatever the result, we don’t imagine we’ll see the two on screen together anytime soon. Which is actually too bad, as Lawless was pretty good. 

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.