It’s common knowledge that George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road was a difficult film shoot. Stars Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy not only had a difficult time with Miller’s direction on-set, the duo also endured a fair amount of friction between them along the way.
At times, the cast couldn’t figure out Miller’s vision for the film, and usually when this happens, the end result is a mess. Of course, the hardships of shooting vanished once the cast saw Fury Road at the premier.
The finished movie is nothing short of a masterpiece. Several cast members recently spoke about just how crazy and demanding the film was to shoot.
The New York Times sat down with Theron and Hardy to find out what really happened on-set and what drove a wedge between the two stars.
A number of scenarios drove the frustrations high and added stress to the already long shoot. Secluded in the Namibian Desert for a number of months, spending most of the time shooting action sequences with little to no dialog, the cast went crazy.
The production was scary and tedious according to Theron:
“The biggest thing that was driving that entire production was fear. I was incredibly scared, because I’d never done anything like it.
I think the hardest thing between me and George is that he had the movie in his head and I was so desperate to understand it.
All of those young girls kind of turned to me as someone who would problem-solve for them, and this is not anybody’s fault – I only say this now because I know George and I’ve experienced this with George, so I’d fully trust him.
But I’ve also trusted directors fully when I didn’t comprehend what they were trying to do, and it just turned into a mess.”
Hardy adds that the cast had to trust Miller, because filming the movie was mostly confusing:
“Because of how much detail we were having to process and how little control one had in each new situation, and how fast the takes were – tiny snippets of story moments were needed to make the final cut work – we moved fast, and it was at times overwhelming.
One had to trust that the bigger picture was being held together.”
According to co-star Zoe Kravitz, frustration turned into anger a number of times on set, Hardy more than most:
“Tom really had moments of frustration, of anger. Charlize did, too, but I feel like he’s the one who really took it out on George the most, and that was a bummer to see.
But you know, in some ways, you also can’t blame him, because a lot was being asked of these actors and there were a lot of unanswered questions.
As an actor, you make a lot of movies – some of them are good and some of them are bad, and you have to kind of let that go.
But with this one, it really felt like we put our actual blood, sweat, tears and time into it, and if it hadn’t been good, I would have been devastated.
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but it was absolutely worth it, and I would do it again if George asked me to.”
Kravit went on to say that Jeremy Renner (Avengers: Endgame) did a chemistry test with her for the role of Max, but ultimately lost the role to Hardy.
Theron says looking back that both her and Hardy were experiencing the same frustrations, but neither communicated that:
“In retrospect, I didn’t have enough empathy to really, truly understand what [Hardy] must have felt like to step into Mel Gibson’s shoes. That is frightening!
And I think because of my own fear, we were putting up walls to protect ourselves instead of saying to each other, ‘This is scary for you, and it’s scary for me, too. Let’s be nice to each other.’
In a weird way, we were functioning like our characters: Everything was about survival.”
Hardy agrees with Theron on the pressures of shooting Mad Max with Miller:
“I would agree. I think in hindsight, I was in over my head in many ways. The pressure on both of us was overwhelming at times. What she needed was a better, perhaps more experienced, partner in me.
That’s something that can’t be faked. I’d like to think that now that I’m older and uglier, I could rise to that occasion.”
The studio had its own issues with the film, which was ran over budget and time. Mad Max: Fury Road wrapped principal photography without having a beginning or an end.
Jeff Robinov forced the film to enter into post-production without the scenes.
Robinov received walking papers and Fury Road received the green light to do reshoots. Check out the full article over at The New York Times.
