Director recalls moment Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy were 'restrained' on set amid 'knock-out' rumors

A director set the record straight after rumors of Shia LaBeouf 'knocking out' Tom Hardy while working on his movie circulated online.

The Hollywood actors are powerhouses in their own rights, and we all know tensions can rise when big personalities clash.

LaBeouf and Hardy teamed up for the 2012 movie Lawless, directed by Australian filmmaker John Hillcoat.

Set in 1931, the pair star as the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, who run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business, bootlegging.

Hardy is middle brother Forrest, the brain of the operation, while youngest brother Jack (LaBeouf) acts as lookout, with older Howard (Jason Clarke) as the brawn.

Over the course of the movie, life seemed to imitate art when Hardy and LaBeouf began apparently scrapping behind the scenes.

Rumors swirled online, with Hardy himself claiming he'd been 'knocked out' in the spat - although he may have just been poking fun at the claims.

But Hillcoat shed further light on what really happened, revealing the information during an 'ask me anything' on Reddit, of all places.

One social media user asked: "Is it true that Shia LaBeouf knocked out Tom Hardy on the Lawless set? If so, what is the story and how do you feel about it?"

Hillcoat was quick to correct the rumors, writing: "No, that's not true. But there was definitely a fight between them.

"It escalated to the point where they had to both be restrained. But I was very pleased to hear it didn't go that way because I would hate to see the outcome."

Yikes.

But in a 2019 interview with Hot Ones, while chowing down on some spicy chicken wings, LaBeouf revealed what actually happened between the pair, called it 'a bunch of bulls***'.

"We used to wrestle all the time and [Tom Hardy’s] a big f*****g person, especially then," he said. "He was getting ready [to play] Bane. We used to f*** with each other all the time but it just so happened that, this one week, my girlfriend was in town and he runs into the room.

"The girl I was with at the time was terrified. She covered up and she ran into the kitchen and he picked me up and I didn’t have nothing on so now I’m naked on his shoulder. We’re in the hallway, we’re wrestling around."

Their play-fighting positioned them near the top of a staircase, where Hardy reportedly stepped too far and fell down several flights.

"For the rest of the shoot, he told everybody I knocked him out," LaBeouf resolved.

But there's no bad blood between the men now, with them both giving each other compliments in separate interviews after the movie.

Lawless is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video.