Years before joining huge franchises like Batman and Mad Max, Oscar nominee Tom Hardy played Jean-Luc Picard’s mysterious nemesis in the 2002 Star Trek movie that marked the end of an era.

Having burst on the scene in 2001’s Black Hawk Down, Hardy began an ascent that would see him become one of the most interesting – and volatile – actors in all of Hollywood. The full power of Hardy’s talent first became evident, it can be argued, in 2008’s prison drama Bronson.

Besides showing his skills in such hard-hitting prestige works, the Havoc star has more than made his mark in genre movies, particularly in the action film arena, and in some huge franchises to boot.

But before playing Bane, Mad Max, Venom or any of the others, Hardy joined another mᴀssive franchise, in a villain role that both called back to a classic bad guy of the 1980s, and weirdly anticipated Bane.

Tom Hardy Was The Villain In Star Trek: Nemesis

Star Trek: Nemesis needed an actor to play a younger clone of Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard. Jude Law was originally considered, but the role finally went to the then-unheralded Hardy, who shaved his head bald, the better to resemble Stewart.

Nemesis reveals that Hardy’s Shinzon was created by the ever-shady Romulans from Picard’s DNA, with the hope of infiltrating Starfleet using the clone. The plan was abandoned, however, and Shinzon was discarded on the Romulan mining planet Remus, where he rose to become the leader of a faction of Reman rebels.

Shinzon’s backstory echoes that of famed Star Trek villain Khan. Like Picard’s clone, Khan was placed in miserable exile, where he was hardened by the daily grind of survival. Khan emerged from that exile to confront Captain Kirk in a space battle, while Shinzon rose from the dilithium mines of Remus, and comes to confront Picard in a space battle.

Shinzon’s origin story is, coincidentally enough, also similar to that of Hardy’s later Batman villain Bane, who grew up amid the horrors of The Pit, a setting similar in its miseries to the dilithium mines where Shinzon learned about the cruel realities of existence.

Nemesis Marked The Final Star Trek Movie For Nearly A Decade

The tenth film in the Star Trek movie franchise, Nemesis under-performed at the box office, grossing just $67.3 million ($131 million adjusted for inflation) on a budget of $60 million. Those numbers no doubt played a part in Paramount pausing the franchise, reviving it seven years later with a new cast, a new creative team and a new timeline.

The TNG ensemble enjoyed a solid movie run after taking over for the stars of TOS, but there would be no transition from their era to the next, as Paramount went for a hard reboot with 2009’s Star Trek.

Matters left dangling at the end of Nemesis, including the fates of Data and his brother B-4, were not addressed until Star Trek: Picard arrived on Paramount+ in 2020.