The Bikeriders Cast Reveals What They Learned About Motorcycle Club Culture

We talked to Tom Hardy, Norman Reedus, and Austin Butler about club culture.

By Jamie Jirak

The Bikeriders is being released in theaters this month, and the film is based on Danny Lyon's photography book about a motorcycle club in the 1960s. The movie was helmed by Jeff Nichols (Mud, Midnight Special) and stars Austin Butler (Dune: Part Two), Tom Hardy (Venom: The Last Dance), Jodie Comer (Killing Eve), Michael Shannon (Midnight Special), Mike Faist (Challengers), Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead), and Boyd Holbrook (Logan). ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Hardy and Reedus who are known for their love of motorcycles in real life. We asked the stars if they learned anything about club culture while making the movie, and they both hilariously replied, "No." 

"I know everything about club culture. I know it all and I learned nothing. Absolutely nothing," Hardy replied in a teasing manner. 

"I don't know if this is the same club culture as club culture now," Reedus explained. "It's about starting a bike group, a club for all the right reasons. And then as it gets bigger and time changes, that club is slipping through your fingers. I think that's more the club in this movie than the Mongols or something." 

While Reedus and Hardy were pretty well-versed in the subject, their co-star, Austin Butler, had more to learn from the experience. 

"Yeah, I think what I learned is it has to do with how the motorcycle club started as just groups that love to ride and love to race and love to talk about motorcycles and then how that as the trauma of the late '60s, the sort of societal trauma of Vietnam and everything that was happening around that time, that started to crystallize back here," Butler shared with ComicBook. 

"What that sort of did as far as eating away at some of the purity of probably just being about loving motorcycles and loving racing and violence and more, the crime world started to take over. So I think that that's one of the things that I learned." 

You can watch our interviews with The Bikeriders stars above. 

Related:

What Is The Bikeriders About?

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(Photo:

Austin Butler in The Bikeriders. 

- Focus Features )

You can read the official synopsis of The Bikeriders here:  "THE BIKERIDERS captures a rebellious time in America when the culture and people were changing. After a chance encounter at a local bar, strong-willed Kathy (Jodie Comer) is inextricably drawn to Benny (Austin Butler), the newest member of Midwestern motorcycle club, the Vandals led by the enigmatic Johnny (Tom Hardy). Much like the country around it, the club begins to evolve, transforming from a gathering place for local outsiders into a dangerous underworld of violence, forcing Benny to choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club."

The Bikeriders is heading to theaters on June 21.

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