George Miller lifts the lid on Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy feud: “There’s no excuse for it”
Ahead of the release of the new Mad Max movie, Furiosa, director George Miller has reflected on the on-set feud between Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron during the making of Fury Road.
Since the film arrived in 2015, Theron has spoke openly about her time shooting the movie, and why she didn’t enjoy her experience of working with the English actor. Her problems largely stemmed from Hardy’s lateness, which delayed the filming on a regular basis, and as a new mother, it deprived Theron of spending time with her child.
In 2022, Theron detailed the difficulties she faced in the book, Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road. At one stage, she allegedly said to Hardy, “How disrespectful are you?” and even asked the producers to “fine the f*cking c*nt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he’s held up this crew.”
Furthermore, Hardy allegedly responded by “charging up to her” and asking, “What did you say to me?”. After feeling uncomfortable following the comments, Theron requested they send a female producer down to equalise the tension because she didn’t feel safe on set.
Meanwhile, Hardy also admitted in the same book, “In hindsight, I was in over my head in many ways. The pressure on both of us was overwhelming at times.”
He added: “What she needed was a better, perhaps more experienced partner in me. I’d like to think that now that I’m older and uglier, I could rise to that occasion.”
Now, in a new interview with The Telegraph, Miller has admitted to tension between the actors and stated “they were just two very different performers”.
Elaborating on their differences, he said: “Tom has a damage to him but also a brilliance that comes with it, and whatever was going on with him at the time, he had to be coaxed out of his trailer. Whereas Charlize was incredibly disciplined – a dancer by training, which told in the precision of her performance – and always the first one on set.”
However, Miller believed the atmosphere did lend itself positively to the film, noting, “I’m an optimist, so I saw their behaviour as mirroring their characters, where they had to learn to co-operate in order to ensure mutual survival.”
Caveating his previous point, the director added: “There’s no excuse for it, and I think there’s a tendency in this business to use great performances as an excuse for other disruption that could be avoided.”
Meanwhile, Anya Taylor-Joy, who stars in Furiosa, revealed her experience of making the new movie was a lonely existence due to her lack of dialogue, stating, “I’ve never been more alone than making that movie. I don’t want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard.”
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