Moustaches, milkshakes and muscles: the inside story of Tom Hardy and Charles Bronson's unlikely friendship

But Williamson isn't the only civilian to have won the heart of 64-year-old Bronson, who has spent more than 40 years of his life in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, after first being incarcerated in 1974.

While the bare knuckle boxer and armed robber has previously been married twice, with the second union taking place when he was already behind bars, almost 10 years ago he enjoyed a brief (platonic) bond with the actor and Taboo star Tom Hardy, who played him in the film Bronson.

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon), the 2009 biopic tells the story of Bronson's life...and to prepare for the role, Hardy spent time getting to know the notorious inmate.

Here's the tale of when Tom met Charles.

At first, Bronson wasn't all that taken with the actor

According to Hardy, Bronson initially felt that Winding Refn's choice of lead was a little insulting, physically speaking. The prisoner is know for his  large build, and for being a fan of extreme workout regimes, using his many free (or, technically speaking, not-so-free) hours to work on his muscles.

In 2007, he even published an exercise book,  Solitary Fitness, in which he detailed his no-frills regime, exhorting his readers to aim for 118 press ups in a minute, and describing how he would bend the metal bars in his cell to work out.

"The first time [Bronson] saw me, he complained," Hardy revealed in a video interview for Love Film. "He didn't see how I could possibly achieve being him. I probably weighed about 11 stone, drenched with stones in my pockets. He couldn't look at me without feeling that he'd been hard done by."

Bronson's outlook brightened considerably, however, after he saw that the dedicated young actor (who was then 30 years old) was prepared to put in the work.

“I just told him, ‘Don’t worry Charlie I’ll fix it’,” Hardy told Ask Men.  “When I came back two weeks later he was thoroughly impressed with what he saw. His sister had been telling him good things about the way I'd been doing his voice and the way I moved like him, but his concern was the physicality of my portrayal of him, but I think I did a good job in the end.”

To achieve The Bronson Look, Hardy embarked upon an intense, body-building training regime – and gorged on pizza, ice cream and fizzy drinks.

“I had five weeks to make the transition into Britain’s most dangerous criminal and it was a race against the clock,” the actor later explained.

“We didn’t have any time to waste, so I started eating and my arse very quickly got very fat. For Bronson, I put on about 7lbs a week — with no steroids. In the end I’d put on about 2 and a half stone by eating chicken and rice, which was my staple diet throughout the day. Then I’d have a pizza, Häagen-Dazs and Coca-Cola: So not good stuff, but I had to put weight on. I needed to put a layer of fat on my body, because Bronson when he was younger was a big guy, a brawler.”

The real Bronson, according to a 2015 report, currently incorporates 18 egg whites a week into his protein heavy diet, and drinks eight pints of water a day.

Hardy won him over with his muscles - and with his milkshakes

According to his diaries, which were published in 2009, Bronson enjoyed his visits from Hardy...and was pleased to observe that the star was bulking up.

“He has put on one and a half stone of muscles for the movie,”  he wrote in one January 2008 entry. “He looks awesome and I’m so f------ proud of him. You wouldn’t want to meet him down a dark alley at 3am. Tom looks more like me than I look like me.” Bronson was also a fan of the actor’s snack-related offerings. “He got me four banana milkshakes and four muffins – a great visit,” he observed in the same entry.

Hardy was (understandably) wary at first

“I thought he [Bronson] would be terrifying and my experience of him was not that at all actually,” the actor revealed in a 2009 interview....although he reiterated that his opinion of the criminal, who has taken numerous hostages and attacked guards while incarcerated, had not fundamentally changed.

“I can’t speak for anybody else who has had a run in with him, who have come a cropper or who have had the misfortune to be on the receiving end of some terrible, terrible attack,” Hardy said.

“I on the other hand have only experienced a very witty and articulate sensitive, angry at times, but very articulate man, which was completely juxtaposed against what I expected."

Bronson chopped off his moustache and sent it to Hardy

In February 2008, while filming for Bronson was taking place, the biopic's eponymous subject penned a diary entry about losing his "infamous" facial hair....and about his plan to send the fuzz in question to Hardy.

“A big event today: I chopped off the most infamous tash in the UK, if not Europe – maybe the world. Yeah, my moustache has gone and it’s going to end up going through Tom Hardy’s letter box," he wrote.

“Maybe the make-up artists on set can stick it on his top lip. If not, Tom can stick it in his pocket for luck. Then at least part of me will be on the film set!” Although various internet sources claim that Hardy did indeed use Bronson’s real moustache as a prop in some scenes, it is unclear just how true this is (either way, the finished article did look pretty authentic).

After filming finished, the pair stayed (sort-of) friends

In a 2009 interview, Hardy revealed that he and Bronson had stayed in contact, and that he had given the prisoner his mobile number.

"He's like 'what are you eating? What's going on out the window?'" Hardy said, when asked what they spoke about on the phone.

Hardy has never directly been involved with campaigns to free Bronson - but he does believe that “Britain’s Most Violent prisoner” no longer belongs in maximum security

“This is a guy who’s in a maximum security prison with murderers but he’s not one himself; Bronson is an old school guy with old school values who has no time for the likes of rapists or paedophiles,” Hardy previously told Ask Men. “It's no wonder he calls himself the man behind the iron mask.”

“I hope he gets de-categorised at some point and rehabilitated slowly towards his freedom,” the actor added in a separate interview with Indie London. “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t. There are murderers who are released back onto the street."

Those who have been on the receiving end of Branson's notorious temper in recent years might not agree, however.

 One of the prisoner's most notorious behind-bars crimes took place in 1999, when he held a civilian art worker who was visiting inmates hostage, after the man in question, Phil Danielson, criticised Bronson's artworks.

Danielson later spoke out against the Bronson film, claiming that it would only fire up those who seek to have him freed.

"I hope he never gets out. Making a movie of his life just glorifies what he did," he told The Mirror at the time.

"It makes me feel sick. I went through hell. I have nightmares, suffered post traumatic stress, had three nervous breakdowns and have never worked since."

In 2010, Bronson left a prison guard with concussion and head and neck injuries after assaulting him in the gym at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, in an attack described by the judge who later oversaw the case as a “life-threatening and particularly horrendous incident”.

And in 2016, he attacked Prison Governor Alan Parkins after a dispute over mishandled mail.