‘Mad Max: Fury Road’: Gal Gadot & Eminem Were Considered For The Lead Roles In George Miller’s Film

It’s hard to imagine now, so long after it was released, that anyone would have been able to step into the roles of Max and Furiosa in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” like Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron were able to do. However, like almost every other film ever created, there was a time when the filmmakers were trying to narrow down who exactly would be the best actors for the job. And in the case of ‘Fury Road,’ George Miller and his crew were casting a pretty wide net. 

In a new oral history of “Mad Max: Fury Road” from Vulture, an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road” by Kyle Buchanan, George Miller and various other members of the filmmaking crew talked about the casting process for the action film. And though Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron were favorites going into the audition process, those two actors weren’t locks. 

READ MORE: Tom Hardy Spit On Armie Hammer During His ‘Mad Max’ Audition

In fact, well before she was the star of “Wonder Woman” and a supporting player in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, a young Gal Gadot was considered for the Furiosa role. And believe it or not, she got pretty damn close to landing the part.

“There were a lot of women who read for Furiosa,” said casting director Ronna Kress. “Jessica Chastain read for me, and this is when she was starting out. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ruth Negga, some French actresses read for it. We had really thrown a net around the world and narrowed it down to a handful of people. Gal Gadot read for it, and she gave an incredible audition. Incredible!”

Miller added, “She tested, and she did incredibly good work — already, you could see that she was very fine. But here’s the thing about Gal: We were testing her not just for Furiosa but also for the Wives, and in terms of age, she fell in between.”

For Gadot, she understood the business side of things and knew it was an uphill battle for her to land the lead while still being an unknown. 

“I was the runner-up for ‘Mad Max’ with Charlize,” she said. “I had so many almosts for big, great things, but I was never big enough of a name.”

READ MORE: ‘Furiosa’: Tom Burke From ‘Mank’ Replaces Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Due To Scheduling Issues

As for the role of Max, which would eventually go to Hardy, after he spit on Armie Hammer’s face during an audition, actually, the net was probably even wider and included actors and non-actors alike. At one point, there was even discussion of rapper Eminem being a contender for the role.

“He’d done ‘8 Mile,’ and I found that really interesting — I thought, he’s got that quality,” said Miller. “We’d done the first ‘Happy Feet’ with the late Brittany Murphy, and she had done ‘8 Mile,’ so I asked her what he was like and would this be something really interesting for him? She had no reservations about saying what a wonderful talent he is.”

He added, “We did get in touch with him, though that’s as far as it went because we were going to shoot it in Australia at that point, and he simply didn’t want to leave home. I think he had the impression that if he could do it out of his home state, then he’d be up for it.”

It’s pretty crazy to imagine a blonde Max going through the desert opposite Furiosa, who could have been Gal Gadot. How different of a film would that have been?