Ben Hardy was born Ben Jones on January 2, 1991 to his parents in Bournemouth, Dorset, England in the United Kingdom. He grew up in Sherborne, a small market town in Southwest England. While in Sherborne, Hardy attended Sherborne Abbey Primary School, then attended Gryphon School. Growing up, he aspired to be a sports personality or engineer before finding his love for acting and singing while attending Gryphon School, where he was also talented in mathematics. He starred in a student film Far from the Madding Crowd as Sergeant Francis Troy, which premiered at the school in July 2009 and later went to DVD. He continued on to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts in Acting in 2012. While at the Central School, Hardy performed in the student production of "City of Angels" in 2012, in which he played Stine, a writer trying to turn his novel into a screenplay. A review of the play stated he was excellent as the troubled writer with a magnificent singing voice.
In 2012, he played Arthur Wellesley in the revival of David Hare's play The Judas Kiss, which also featured Rupert Everett. The production was supposed to be a limited run at the Hampstead Theatre, but led to a small tour before landing at West End's Duke of York's Theatre in January 2013. In April 2013, Hardy landed the role of Peter Beale on BBC's soap EastEnders, taking over for Thomas Law.
In 2016, he made his film debut as Warren Worthington III, aka Angel/Archangel, in X-Men: Apocalypse, starring James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, and Oscar Isaac. Hardy originally auditioned for the role of Scott Sommers (Cyclops), but the role inevitably went to Tye Sheridan, which opened up the door to be cast as Archangel. Not long after, he was cast alongside Elle Fanning in Haifaa Al-Mansour's period romance film Mary Shelley as writer Dr. John William Polidori, which was released in 2017. That same year, he co-starred alongside Josh Brolin, Taylor Kitsch, and Miles Teller in Only The Brave playing Wade Parker, a member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots Firefighters. The film was a commercial failure, but viewers have rated the film 4.7+ stars and was certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes with 87% approval.
In early 2018, Hardy landed the lead role in a BBC Mini-Series The Woman in White, starring as Walter Hartright. That fall, he portrayed the legendary Queen drummer Roger Taylor in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. The film won Best Picture at the 2019 Golden Globes, Best Ensemble at the 2019 AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, as well as Oscars for Best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, among countless other awards including Rami Malek sweeping each awards for Best Actor for his portrayal as Freddie Mercury. The Michael Bay-directed film 6 Undergroundwas released on Netflix in December 2019, co-starring Ryan Reynolds, where Hardy played Four, a parkour expert. Netflix announced that the film had been viewed over 83 million times in its first month of release. In 2020, his next film Pixie, a comedy-thriller, also starring Olivia Cooke and Alec Baldwin would be ready to hit theaters, where he would be playing Frank McCullen. The film was released in UK cinemas on October 23, 2020 and continued to show in theaters at the end of the year when UK cinemas opened back up. It was announced in late 2020 that Saban Films picked up the film to distribute in North America.
Hardy filmed The Voyeurs, a thriller co-starring Justice Smith and Sydney Sweeney, where he plays Seb. The film is set to be released on Prime Video. He filmed The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight in early 2021, a romance based on the young adult novel by Jennifer E. Smith, where he plays Oliver O'Callaghan opposite Haley Lu Richardson. Hardy will also star alongside Tim Roth in Recovery, which is currently in pre-production.
In an interview, he had expressed his interest in returning to the stage, but the COVID-19 pandemic had paused that ambition… for now.
In his free time, Hardy enjoys keeping fit, photography and writing music; and of course, spending time with his family, friends, and his beagle Frankie.
