Havoc cast and character guide: Meet Tom Hardy's crew of bruisers, gangsters, and crooked cops
If you've seen a Gareth Evans film, you know he'll earn a title like Havoc.
The writer and director previously helmed The Raid (2011) and The Raid 2 (2014), two highly-regarded action films in their own right. He's also one of the minds behind AMC's Gangs of London (2020–present).
Evans' latest film, Havoc, stars Tom Hardy as Walker, an unsavory fixer tasked with protecting the son of real estate tycoon Lawrence Beaumont (Forest Whitaker) after the kid stumbles into a plot involving the Yakuza, crooked cops, and other assorted goons. The riotous ensemble sets the stage for many thrilling, gory, and impeccably-choreographed action sequences.
"My initial inspiration was to do something that was a love letter to the Hong Kong action films of ‘80s and ‘90s," Evans tells Entertainment Weekly. "But then when it came to the character work, it was very much like looking at the American crime films of the ‘70s, whether it was French Connection or Thief or Point Blank with Lee Marvin's character incidentally called Walker. They're not likable characters by any stretch of the imagination, and they're protagonists. They're almost kind of like anti-heroes in a way."
Let's meet those anti-heroes, as well as the familiar faces playing them. Read on for EW's Havoc cast and character guide.
Rugged oddball Tom Hardy emerged as one of Hollywood's most refreshingly strange movie stars, having demonstrated his impressive range in projects both profound (Dunkirk) and deeply silly (Venom).
The English actor is a perfect pairing with the kinetic Evans, as he's played rough-and-tumble brawlers in several bone-crunchers, including Bronson (2008), Warrior (2011), and The Revenant (2015), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.
But Hardy is also a marquee name, having appeared in numerous Christopher Nolan films, as well as the big-screen epics The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
Hardy plays Walker, a miserable cop-turned-fixer who stumbles into a hornet's nest of capable killers when he's hired to scoop up the son of a mayoral candidate.
"I had a version of Walker that was maybe more sarcastic, more lighthearted, and then when [Hardy and I] started discussing the character, we started deep diving into, what are the things that haunted him? What are the things that gave him this weight of emotion to carry through the film?" Evans tells EW. "We spent maybe five or six FaceTime calls, about three or four hours each, just doing a deep dive into character."
Jessie Mei Li's breakout came via Netflix's Shadow and Bone (2021–2023), in which she played Sun Summoner Alina Starkov. Prior to that, she appeared opposite Gillian Anderson and Lily James in a West End production of All About Eve, and also played a role in Edgar Wright's 2021 film Last Night in Soho.
Li stars alongside Hardy as Ellie, a rookie cop and ally of Walker. Speaking with Cosmopolitan, she said her performance was heavily impacted by Hardy's approach. "A lot of my performance was actually informed by what Tom was doing. There's even things like… I kind of copied his walk a little bit in a couple of scenes, not entirely, but I wanted it to feel like they had a sort of a kinship, like a kind of kindred spirit."
Timothy Olyphant emerged as a '90s bad boy in Scream 2 (1997) and Go (1999) before his pair of Emmy-nominated turns on HBO's Deadwood (2004–2006) and FX's Justified (2010–2015). He'd later reprise those roles in Deadwood: The Movie (2019) and Justified: City Primeval (2023).
Olyphant has also appeared in films from acclaimed directors like Lawrence Kasdan (Dreamcatcher), Garry Marshall (Mother's Day), Oliver Stone (Snowden), Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and David O. Russell (Amsterdam). He'll next appear in Noah Hawley's Alien: Earth series for FX.
A contrast to his Deadwood role as the straight-shooting Seth Bullock, Olyphant costars in Havoc as Vincent, a crooked narcotics cop whose crew runs afoul of Hardy's Walker.
Since debuting in the indelible Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Forest Whitaker has worked with everyone from bigwigs like Martin Scorsese (The Color of Money) and Oliver Stone (Platoon) to indie legends such as Abel Ferrrara (Body Snatchers) and Jim Jarmusch (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai). In 2007, his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin won him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In recent years, Whitaker joined the Star Wars universe as rebel fighter Saw Gerrera in Rogue One (2016) and Andor (2022), and appeared as Zuri in Black Panther (2018).
As real estate tycoon (and mayoral candidate) Lawrence Beaumont, Whitaker helps kickstart the narrative by hiring Walker to protect his son, Charlie, who's gotten mixed up in a dangerous (and politically disastrous) stew of drugs and murder.
Pennsylvania-born actor Justin Cornwell began his career with guest spots on Chicago P.D. (2014) and Empire (2015) before landing roles on Netflix's The Umbrella Academy (2022) and Peacock's Bel-Air (2023–2024).
Cornwell plays Charlie, the son of Whitaker's Lawrence Beaumont. Speaking at the Havoc premiere, Cornwell described his character as flawed but caring. "He's estranged from his father and he's trying to figure out what to do in the world and trying to make sure his girlfriend is okay," he said. "He is definitely a person who will do anything to keep the people around him safe."
Prior to Havoc, Quelin Sepulveda appeared on Showtime's The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022) and Amazon's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Good Omens (2023), in which she played the book-loving angel Muriel.
Sepulveda plays Charlie's girlfriend, Mia, one of the instigators of Havoc's sprawling collision of criminality.
The prolific Luis Guzmán is one of Hollywood's most recognizable character actors, having appeared in dozens of movies and series since his 1977 debut in the film Short Eyes.
He's been a repeat player in the films of some of America's best living directors, including Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love), Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, The Limey, Traffic), and Brian De Palma (Carlito's Way, Snake Eyes).
Most recently, the Puerto Rican actor is playing Gomez Addams on Netflix's hugely successful Wednesday (2022–present).
Guzmán appears in Havoc as Raul, Mia's uncle. "I understood that character inside and out, you know what I’m saying?" he said in a recent interview. "I had a reference. It was somebody that I grew up with. He kind of had a junkyard, back in the day in the neighborhood. He was kind of sketchy. But he was, like, super cool. He also looked out for people... But he still has this element that he can be harmful, dangerous, or whatever you want to label it."
Malaysian actress Yeo Yann Yann has appeared in acclaimed Singaporean films since the 2000s, earning recognition for Singapore Dreaming (2006) and Ilo Ilo (2013). She debuted in Hollywood opposite Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan on the Disney+ series American Born Chinese (2023).
Yeo plays the vengeance-seeking mother of a slain Yakuza gangster. “The biggest sign that Mother has power is that she doesn’t have to say anything," Yeo told the Straits Times. "All I needed to do was move my finger, or move my eyes. That was all."
Sunny Pang is a Singaporean action veteran and frequent collaborator of Timo Tjahjanto, who previously worked with Evans on V/H/S/2 (2013). Pang appeared in Tjahjanto's Headshot (2016) and The Night Comes For Us (2018), as well as multiple seasons of the Singaporean procedural Code of Law (2012–2018).
According to the Straits Times, Evans wrote the role of Ching, an acolyte of Yeo's Mother, specifically for Pang. Pang, meanwhile, was just happy to meet Whitaker. “The best thing about filming Havoc was that I got to see the legend that is Forest Whitaker,” Pang told the outlet.
He added, “I shook his hand on the first day. I think I tried to absorb all the power he had through that handshake.”
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