The star of Mad Max: Fury Road and Kray twins biopic Legend has explained why he dismissed a reporter’s line of questioning at the Toronto film festival

Tom Hardy has said he shut down a journalist who asked about his sexuality at a Toronto film festival press conference this week because the line of questioning was inelegant and humiliating.

Hardy, who has been clear in the media for many years that he is heterosexual, said he considered the way in which the question was posed – in a public forum to promote his new film Legend – as an invasion of privacy.

“That really, really annoyed me,” Hardy told Entertainment Weekly. “It was just the inelegance of being asked in a room full of people … Now I’m happy to have a conversation, a discussion, at a reasonable time about anything. I’m confident in my own sexuality, and I’m also confident in my own being and talking about any issue you want to talk about it. But there is a time and a place for that.”

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Hardy has portrayed numerous gay and straight characters during his career. In the mob biopic Legend, he plays both Reggie Kray, who was heterosexual, and his twin brother Ronnie, who was openly bisexual.

On 13 September in Toronto, Hardy was asked: “Is it hard for celebrities to talk to the media about their sexuality?” by a reporter for LGBT news outlet Daily Xtra.

“Are you asking me about my sexuality?” Hardy said. When the response came back in the affirmative, Hardy first asked why and then ended the line of questioning with an abrupt “thank you”.

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In the Entertainment Weekly interview the actor, who has been keen not to appear homophobic, said he believed the reporter was acting in a mischievous and disingenuous fashion. “I found it very humiliating for somebody to decide that on his dime and his time, to openly and inelegantly pursue a line of questioning which I could only sense … was zeroing in on a reaction from me that would become a topic of discussion that had nothing to do really, really to do with what was there,” he said. “I’m quite sensitive, and I feel like I’ve let people down for something that I actually didn’t ask for, for something that’s important to a lot of people. Should I come out of the closet when I’m not in one? I ought to maybe come out of the closet, even though that’s a lie, to do the right thing.”

Hardy added: “Or, if I say no, then I’m homophobic? Bless [the reporter] … but at the same time, it left me feeling like I have to do something about that … Whose business is it anyway, and isn’t that the point?”