According to Charles Bronson’s son, George Bamby, Tom Hardy has been barred from visiting the convict in jail.

In the 2008 film Bronson, directed by Nicholas Winding Refn and based in part on Bronson’s life, Hardy played Bronson, who is described as “Britain’s most notorious prison inmate.”

Bronson was convicted of armed robbery in 1974 and freed in 1987, but was sentenced to jail again in 1988 after being found guilty of plotting another heist. Bronson was eventually condemned to life in prison and dubbed “Britain’s most violent inmate” after a series of attacks and the kidnapping of multiple hostages while inside.

Shortly after the film’s premiere, the prison service made it obvious that Hardy was not allowed return. The only reason for the restriction, according to Bamby, is that they don’t agree with their detainees being turned into movie stars.

Bamby appeared on James English’s Anything Goes, where he said: “I don’t think he’s spoke to Tom for a couple of years, but it’s like anything with Charlie…

“Tom was really nice to him, because obviously he wanted to do the film and he went to see and learn all about him and all the rest of it.

“But since Bronson came out, the prison service have banned Tom from visiting.”

“Well, because he’d just brought a film out, Bronson,” Bamby responded when asked why Hardy was barred from coming. “And it’s a fucking Hollywood blockbuster and it’s all over the place and everyone knows it.

“They don’t want prisoners being portrayed into being big movie stars.”

Prison guards have in the past warned Bamby that his father is ’20 times harder’ than Hardy.

He revealed in an interview with LADbible: “He’s seen the film, and he thought it was absolutely brilliant. He thought Tom Hardy did a good job and portrayed him well.

George Bamby and his dad in prison. Credit: George Bamby

“But, the funny thing is, when I go in to see him in prison, the amount of screws that have said to me ‘have you seen that film about your dad, Bronson?’

“I go ‘yeah’ and they say, ‘well, you saw him in the film and saw Tom play him in the film, times that by 20 and that’s what your dad is really like in a fight’.

“The screws say that the film Bronson made him look a bit of a pansy, because he’s like 20 times harder than that.

“They’ve even said to me that even when there was a group of 12 of them that used to go into his cell when he was kicking off and they’d still s*** themselves even though there was 12 of them.”

Tom Hardy, who made his film debut in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down in 2001, is one of the most prominent and in-demand British actors working today, having played in a variety of roles on both the big and small screen. He has played Mad Max in the remake Mad Max: Fury Road, both Kray brothers in Legend, and has delved into both DC and Marvel comic book films, playing Bane in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and Venom in the film of the same name, a character he reprises in the sequel later this year.