It’s been well documented that the development and production of George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” were nearly disastrous, leading to multiple headaches and hiccups delaying the film’s start, along with ditching a proposed 4th film with Mel Gibson and instead, starting a new story with Tom Hardy mid-stream after the events of “The Road Warrior.” When cameras finally began rolling, the problems didn’t end there as Hardy, and Oscar-winner Charlize Theron ended up despising each other, which may have helped illustrate the characters’ tension in the film’s story. However, it wasn’t the best situation for the cast and crew when filming it.
Some quotes from the revealing new book “Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild & True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road” by Kyle Buchanan have been dropped in a piece at Vanity Fair, giving some insight and reflections on the rough production of what many consider one of the best modern action films.
From all accounts and some of Hardy’s previous quotes, it seems like he just took the warring relationship between the two lead characters a little too seriously and literally. In the book, camera operator Mark Goellnicht gives a glimpse into the havoc caused by Hardy’s unprofessionalism towards the crew and Theron’s heated but understandable reaction to it. One of his stories talks about how Hardy would always arrive late to set, seemingly purposefully to drive Theron, who was always meticulously prepared and on time, up the wall.
READ MORE: Zoe Kravitz Talks Charlize Theron & Tom Hardy’s Feud On ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
“Eleven o’clock. She’s now in the War Rig, sitting there with her makeup on and a full costume for three hours,” Goellnicht explained. “She jumps out of the War Rig, and she starts swearing her head off at him, saying, ‘Fine the fucking cunt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he’s held up this crew,’ and ‘How disrespectful you are!’” Goellnicht noted. “She was right. Full rant. She screams it out. It’s so loud, it’s so windy — he might’ve heard some of it, but he charged up to her and went, ‘What did you say to me?’”
“He was quite aggressive. She really felt threatened, and that was the turning point,” Goellnicht added.
“Whether that was some kind of power play or not, I don’t know, but it felt deliberately provocative,” First assistant camera Ricky Schamburg said of Hardy’s constant delays. “If you ask me, he kind of knew that it was really pissing Charlize off because she’s professional, and she turns up really early.”
“It got to a place where it was kind of out of hand,” Theron is quoted as saying .” And there was a sense that maybe sending a woman producer down could maybe equalize some of it because I didn’t feel safe.”
Theron said the in-fighting between the two became really awkward for members of the cast, including Nicholas Hoult. “it was like two parents in the front of the car. We were either fighting, or we were icing each other,” she said. “I don’t know which one is worse—and they had to deal with it in the back. It was horrible! We should not have done that; we should have been better. I can own up to that.”
However, with distance and time, both actors are more diplomatic and less heated about what’s often been described as a war onset between the two of them.
“Looking back on where we are in the world now, given what happened between me and Tom, it would have been smart for us to bring a female producer in,” Theron said in reflection of her experience. “You understand the needs of a director who wants to protect his set, but when push comes to shove, and things get out of hand, you have to be able to think about that in a bigger sense. That’s where we could have done better, if George trusted that nobody was going to come and fuck with his vision but was just going to come and help mediate situations. I think he didn’t want any interference, and there were several weeks on that movie where I wouldn’t know what was going to come my way, and that’s not necessarily a nice thing to feel when you’re on your job. It was a little bit like walking on thin ice.”
Hardy is also seemingly apologetic for his behavior. “In hindsight, I was in over my head in many ways,” he admitted. “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.”
While much of this seems new, even Hardy and Theron alluded to their issues and their behavior at the Cannes Film Festival during the movie’s world premiere and first press conference. In hindsight, it’s probably much easier to decode now that we all know the whole story.