The Revenant cost Tom Hardy Suicide Squad role

Tom Hardy constantly moaned at director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu on the set of The Revenant after production delays cost him a lead role in Suicide Squad.

The Dark Knight Rises star was tapped to take on the role of Suicide Squad leader Rick Flagg in the highly-anticipated comic book adaptation, but he had to drop out of the project in January (15) when filming on The Revenant overlapped.

The shoot delay was caused by a lack of snow on location in Calgary, Canada, which forced the cast and crew to resume filming months later in Argentina, around the same time Tom would have started work on Suicide Squad. His part was eventually filled by Robocop's Joel Kinnaman.

Now the Brit has opened up about the unfortunate scheduling clash, which left him feeling more than a little bitter.

"It punched right into that (Suicide Squad production)," Tom explains to Variety.com. "That got derailed for me. Was I bummed? Of course I was. I hate f**king losing work. I kept bemoaning that they were losing me significant money on a daily basis."

However, the anger worked well for his part as real-life fur-trapper John Fitzgerald, who betrays Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Hugh Glass, and leaves him for dead in the wilderness after a bear attack.

"It was good for my character," he confesses.

The climate change issues also affected the way Alejandro shot the project: "Initially, the whole idea was to shoot the entire film in one shot like (Alejandro's Oscar winner) Birdman," Tom reveals. "That became one thing that had to be adapted to the environment. It was a hugely ambitious pitch."

Despite the production troubles, Tom insists the experience was "completely awesome" and he is baffled by rumors suggesting he once punched Alejandro over a disagreement on set.

"If you hit somebody, you'd know about it," he says. "That didn't happen. That's just nonsense."

"He offers a smorgasbord of ideas," Tom continues. "You can take a character in so many directions, but I would never disagree with him on something. It was very harmonious and there was a lot of silliness. I had a very playful and fun relationship. He doesn't take himself that seriously. That's the Alejandro that I know and love, and I take the p**s out of him and he takes the p**s out of me."