Tom Hardy's perfect reaction to a journalist's sexist Mad Max question is going viral

Mad Max has been described as feminist movie -and has been boycotted by a number of men's rights activists - simply for having so many strong female characters such as Charlize Theron's protagonist 'Furiosa'.

Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell was the unfortunate soul who posed the question to Hardy at a Q&A earlier this month and received this withering look in return followed by a simple answer - 'no'.

Skip to 9.50 mins in

Here's the exchange in full:

Howell:" I have a question for Tom Hardy. Tom, I’ll preface my remarks by saying that I have five sisters, a wife, a daughter and a mother so I know what it’s like to be outgunned by oestrogen. But I just wanted to ask you, as you were reading the script did you ever think ‘why are all these women in here. I thought this was supposed to be a man’s movie?"

Hardy: "No… Not for one minute. That’s kind of obvious."

Screencaps of Tom's face have been shared widely online and are no doubt on track to meme status.

Howell, for his part, has tweeted that his question was badly worded.

@joanchang My question to Hardy was badly worded, opposite to my intent & regretted. I'm delighted he's a Mad Max surrounded by women.

— Peter Howell 🖊 (@peterhowellfilm) May 27, 2015

@mousterpiece I was hoping for a funny response from him about working with so many women in a genre usually dominated by men. I failed.

— Peter Howell 🖊 (@peterhowellfilm) May 27, 2015

We'll forgive you, Peter - Tom's reaction was punishment enough.