Once Hero Fiennes Tiffin was cast as the fictional Hardin Scott in the After film franchise, fans immediately started fawning over the British actor. Now that he’s finished filming all four films, which were based off the book series by Anna Todd, the actor has opened up about playing the misunderstood heartthrob.
Hardin, a tattooed bad boy inspired by Harry Styles, has an eye-opening character arc throughout both the After films and movies. At the beginning, he’s a typical college-aged boy, but everything changes once he meets Tessa Young (played by Josephine Langford).
“Hero I met for the first time in the casting room. I had watched the auditions and we were down to three people, and I knew within, like, 20 seconds that he was the one,” author Anna recalled during an interview with BuzzFeed from April 2019. “I didn’t have to convince many people because everybody loved him, but I knew immediately.”
Before being cast in the fan-favorite film franchise, Hero had no prior knowledge of the After book series. The Harry Potter alum was really just drawn to the “complexity and mystery” of Hardin, which he told W Magazine in April 2019 is “especially attractive to an actor for a first lead role.”
“There are so many layers that you slowly reveal to the audience. It’s obviously hard work and long hours and conflicting opinions, but the whole process of filming was fun,” Hero added. “We got so lucky in the cast and crew — I’m in touch with so many of them still today.”
When it came to discussing the actual relationship between the fictional Hardin and Tessa — dubbed #Hessa by fans — Hero had a lot to say.
“It’s very, very far from a perfect relationship, but yes. That question — Is this a healthy relationship, and is it worth them getting back together? — is what the movie’s about, and what makes it interesting,” the actor also told W at the time. “I think it’s a huge question in everyone’s life, in any relationship, and this is just one specific example. It’s by no means a guidebook, but hopefully just an entertaining story of one couple who are trying to figure out if their love is going to work, if it’s worth it and if the other person is right for them.”
The first After movie hit theaters in April 2019, with the second — After We Collided — coming a little over a year later in October 2020. Then, the cast filmed the final two — After We Fell and After Ever Happy — back-to-back before saying goodbye to the characters.
Scroll through our gallery to read everything Hero has said about playing Hardin over the years.
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“I shook his hand, and there was a kind of thing,” the actor recalled. “We didn’t have the opportunity to talk because it was at the entrance, and it was quite full, but I feel like there was a little thing in the eyes of, like, we both knew. There was a knowing look. I haven’t spoken to him in detail about it. I hope that happens sometime.”
What Hero Fiennes Tiffin Has Said Playing Hardin in the ‘After’ Movies
“It’s one of those things where none of it is malicious. it all comes from a good, honest, true place,” Hero said in the same StyleCaster interview. “Naturally, because of his imperfect attachment and behavior he’s learned from growing up, the trauma that he’s dealing with is very difficult for him.”
He added, “We are making a romance, and it’s supposed to be entertaining. A lot of the nature of the relationship isn’t perfect, but it’s something we were always conscious of, trying not to glorify it too much. But ultimately, it’s a very difficult fine line to tread because you don’t want to glorify it and make anyone think that’s a good way to be, but at the same time, in the world of cinema, that is somewhat entertaining. It’s a balance we were conscious of and hopefully we balanced it.”
What Hero Fiennes Tiffin Has Said Playing Hardin in the ‘After’ Movies
“The interesting thing about Hardin is that he changes so much depending on how Tessa changes,” Hero told Flaunt magazine February 2021. “Once he deals with his childhood trauma, you hope that he will be able to become his best self. I think the whole journey with After as well is watching how he becomes the best version of himself alongside Tessa. He goes from being a version of himself who is far from who he wants to be to transforming to be who he wants to be.”
Exploring Hardin’s Past
Hero told Seventeen in December 2020 that getting to hear more of Hardin’s backstory was “like a breath of fresh air.”
“It was what I always wanted, because there’s aspects of his character that, in the first film, aren’t fully justified,” the actor explained. “It’s really nice for people to know the whole story, there’s that whole thing of, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ You don’t want to judge a person because you never know everything about them. It’s nice for the fans and the audience to finally kind of know, not the full story, but you know more about how he is and why he is the way is. I was always really looking forward to that and I’m glad we got to do it.”
“People have been throwing around the term ‘Book Hardin,’ and it’s been really tough to try and keep everyone happy in bringing ‘Book Hardin’ to life,” the British star told POPSUGAR in December 2020. “It’s really tough because you’ve got so many amazing fans who’ve supported the books from well before they were ever going to be made into movies. They’ve fallen in love with the characters and storylines that are in the book, and it’s just physically impossible to condense that much material into a movie.”
“I had to learn that you can never judge your character,” Hero admitted to GQ Australia in May 2020. “At the start it was … not an issue for me, but it was something I had to deal with, you know? Playing a character who’s so unlikeable at moments — so hateable, to be honest.”
“He’s definitely a controversial one,” Hero said to Wonderland magazine in March 2019. “I definitely learnt how not to judge my character, because there are times when you want to. You know when you’re screaming at the screen in a film? I felt like Hardin is like that a lot. But also that’s great to play as an actor, because it’s that kind of illogical, impulsive stuff that you really have to get into to do it.”
“Hardin Scott, the character I play in After, is a troubled guy with a lot on his mind,” he told Interview magazine in March 2019. “He’s very naive, like a lot of teens are.”
