How Accurate Is Tom Hardy’s Capone Voice

Tom Hardy uses a unique, growly voice in his portrayal of the title character in Josh Trank’s Capone, but how accurate is it? In the past, Hardy used distinct voices in The Dark Knight Rises, Locke, and Bronson, but in his role as Al Capone, Hardy adopted a different vocal cadence. The infamous Chicago mobster was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the child of immigrants from the southern part of Italy, so there’s a regional specificity that’s important to capture.

Capone doesn’t focus on the subject’s glory days in the late 1920s, but rather his final year of life in 1947. As a mob boss, Capone was cruel and calculating and reportedly wasn’t afraid to use some heavy profanity while intimidating his enemies. However, many people remember Capone as a Chicago gangster, and hence apply the appropriate regional accent when imagining his voice. But the reality is that “Scarface” lived the first 20 years of his life in New York City and was even part of the infamous Five Points Gang, which is the focus of Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film Gangs of New York.  So Hardy undoubtedly used that historical information for his latest character interpretation/immersion.

It’s been widely reported that there are no available audio recordings of Capone’s voice, so Hardy’s Capone interpretation is seemingly based on speculation and first-hand stories. But according to a July 2012 news story on Capone’s niece, Deirdre Marie Capone, there is indeed a surviving recording. In a 22-second clip, Capone discusses moving to Chicago with only $40 in his pocket and also states that Prohibition was “unjust.” There’s a raspy tone to Capone’s voice, which aligns with Hardy’s gruff tone in Josh Trank’s 2020 film.

In August 2018, Hardy revealed that Bugs Bunny inspired his Capone voice. According to Esquire journalist Eric Sullivan, “[Hardy] often begins by using personalities, both real and fictive, as lodestars toward which he guides his portrayal. The voice he developed for Al Capone in Fonzo is based on Bugs Bunny’s; to prove it, he plays me a clip of the raw footage on his phone. Sure enough, he sounds like the cartoon rabbit with a severe case of vocal fry.” So that explains Hardy’s staccato grunting in Capone, whether his character is communicating with friends and family members or merely muttering to himself while thinking of the past. Like Bugs Bunny, Hardy’s Capone even has a carrot in his mouth, but only because a doctor declares that he can no longer smoke cigars, due to his poor health.

Dating all the way back to the early 1930s, actors have been portraying Al Capone on screen, with Paul Muni delivering a memorable interpretation in the original Scarface, in which Muni uses a more stylized rhythm of speech, but with the same vocal tone. In the 1975 film Capone, Ben Gazzara similarly uses a scratchy low-tone, while Robert De Niro’s interpretation in The Untouchables is much like his actual speaking voice. In general, most actors can get away with using a typical Italian-American mobster voice, but Hardy makes his Capone version authentic by not only capturing the tone and rhythm, but by also speaking actual Italian, with a regional dialect, that his subject would’ve used while conversing with his immigrant parents.

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Q.V. Hough
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Q.V. Hough is a senior writer at Screen Rant. He’s also the founding editor at Vague Visages, and has contributed to RogerEbert.com and Fandor.

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