By the time we the public see stars strutting down international red carpets to promote their latest project, the messiness of the actual movie-making is far behind them. Unless, like for
Mad Max: Fury Road co-stars Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, that movie-making experience stopped just short of being "traumatic." Director George Miller’s Academy Award-winning 2015 action remake was notoriously plagued by on-set problems—from difficult shooting conditions and multiple set shutdowns to what can be most generously described as a “strong dislike” between its two leads, Theron and Hardy.In a lengthy oral history of the film published yesterday in
The New York Times, the two actors openly admitted how bad the on-set tension truly was. "The biggest thing that was driving that entire production was fear,” said Theron. “I was incredibly scared because I’d never done anything like it.""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,'"
she said. "In a weird way, we were functioning like our characters: Everything was about survival."[video_embed id='1895008']RELATED: Charlize Theron on why she was humbled by her first Oscar win[/video_embed]It was back in 2016 that Theron initially admitted her dislike for Hardy in an interview with the
Wall Street Journal magazine (
via People). “Maybe the movie is what it is because we struggled so much with each other, and those characters had to struggle so much with each other,” she mused. It seems she now has much more compassion for Hardy, admitting, "I didn’t have enough empathy to really, truly understand what he must have felt like to step into Mel Gibson’s shoes."Hardy, for his part, has a reputation for being
a total sweetheart on other sets, but co-star Zoe Kravitz confirmed on
Mad Max, he "really had moments of frustration, of anger." He said he now understands his shortcomings at that time and has nothing but empathy for both his younger self and Theron."I think in hindsight, I was in over my head in many ways,” he told the
Times. “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."We’re happy to hear that the two actors appear to have buried the hatchet (and whatever other dystopian weapons their characters carted around) because director George Miller recently announced his plans to follow up
Fury Road, one of the best action films ever made,
with a sequel or two.[video_embed id='-1']BEFORE YOU GO: English Bulldog shows how to properly wear a mask[/video_embed]
