Yesterday we got our first official look at the Suicide Squad. But instead of Tom Hardy as Rick Flagg, we got Joel Kinnaman. Warner Bros. officially announced that Hardy would play Rick Flagg in Suicide Squad, but unfortunately he had to drop out. There were a lot of rumors and speculation, but now thanks to Collider we know the real reason from the man himself.

First, Hardy went on to praise the Suicide Squad script, especially the stuff between The Joker and Harley Quinn. (Collider notes that “alley” means “right up there with the best”):

“Warner Bros. is my home studio and I love them so I was really bummed out. I wanted to work on that and I know the script is really fucking alley and I also know what’s gonna happen with The Joker and Harley Quinn in that; I won’t give away too much…it’s fucking alley. And that whole territory is something that I would certainly—I mean, everybody loves The Joker. Everybody loves The Joker. Will Smith is a dope guy, but everybody loves The Joker and that’s gonna, I think, be a very important film for fans.”

Then Hardy explained that the production schedule on his upcoming movie The Revenant was the real reason as to why he had to drop out of Suicide Squad:

“There’s a very practical element as to why I’ve missed out on that foray, which is because Alejandro [G. Inarritu] has overshot by three months in Calgary, so we’ve got to go back out to Patagonia or Alaska to continue shooting The Revenant which has turned into a much bigger beast than we thought, but that also looks exceptional.” “Literally we wrapped in Calgary for now until we go back in July. It would have smashed the two, I would’ve had a beard. It was just not gonna happen so I got ass-slammed technically out of Suicide Squad, gutted, so I had to hand it over to Joel Kinnaman, who will do an amazing job. It’s just I got bumped out, and that’s cool that’s the way it is.”

SOURCE: Collider