‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ was nominated for ten awards at the 88th Academy Awards back in 2016. It won six out of ten. The movie was considered to be one of the best films of the year, but the making of the film? Well, it was one of the worst on set experiences for Charlize Theron.
In a new book detailing the behind-the-scenes drama of the movie, Theron revealed that her relationship with co-star Tom Hardy was so volatile that she requested protection from him on set.
The book, Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, was put together by journalist Kyle Buchanan.
According to a camera operator who worked on set, Hardy and Theron had been battling for weeks when things became explosive one memorable day. On this day, Theron and Hardy were scheduled to be on set at eight in the morning. Theron was always on time, but Hardy typically arrived late, especially during morning call times.
Charlize got there right at eight o’clock, sat in the War Rig, knowing that Tom’s never going to be there at eight even though they made a special request for him to be there on time. He was notorious for never being on time in the morning. If the call time was in the morning, forget it — he didn’t show up.
Whether that was some kind of power play or not, I don’t know, but it felt deliberately provocative.
He showed up three hours late to set that day, while Theron waited in full makeup and costume. Safe to say, she was pissed when he showed up.
She jumps out of the War Rig, and she starts swearing her head off at him, saying, ‘Fine the f**king cunt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he’s held up this crew 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.
After the incident, Theron didn’t feel safe around Hardy, so she requested that a female producer shadow her on set to speak up for her.
Theron admitted as much…
It got to a place where it was kind of out of hand, and there was a sense that maybe sending a woman producer down could maybe equalize some of it, because I didn’t feel safe. I kind of put my foot down. George then said, ‘Okay, well, if Denise comes…’ He was open to it and that kind of made me breathe a little bit, because it felt like I would have another woman understanding what I was up against.
Hardy admits he was in over his head while filming and that he felt so much pressure. He admittedly didn’t handle the situation well.
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.
