Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron's chemistry was so intense that it caused the Mad Max: Fury Road casting director to crash her car. The long-delayed sequel to the dystopian Mad Max franchise released in 2015 after spending decades in development hell. While it underperformed at the box office against its sizeable budget, critical praise for Fury Road was deafening, with many naming it among the best films of the decade and the greatest action movies of all time.
Mad Max: Fury Road sees Hardy play series protagonist Max Rockatansky, taking over the role made famous by Mel Gibson, as he finds himself caught by a warlike cult led by the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Though used as a blood supply for one of Joe's War Boys, Nux (Nicholas Hoult), Max soon finds himself entangled with Theron's Imperator Furiosa, a high-ranking officer in Joe's army who organizes the escape of his wives from right under his nose. The two eventually decide to collaborate against their common enemy, and vehicular chaos ensues.
Now, the upcoming book Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road by Kyle Buchanan chronicles the movie's legendarily difficult time getting to the silver screen, and an excerpt shared by Variety reveals the moment Hardy and Theron were picked as the leads. According to casting director Ronna Kress, it wasn't until the two stars were put together that she and director George Miller knew what they had. In fact, she remembers their chemistry being so blinding that she couldn't help but stare at them as she backed out of her parking spot - and directly into a pole. Check out Kress' full comments below:
The truth of it is that we didn’t end up casting Tom until we had Tom and Charlize together. At that point, [director George Miller] had gone back to Australia, and we did a video-conference call at Warner Bros. with George so he could talk to Tom and Charlize, because it was really important for him to see them together. Once we saw them, we just knew. It was an indescribable, perfect thing. After the video call, Tom and Charlize and I were in the parking lot. I was looking at them, and they looked so unbelievable together — it was perfect; there was no question in my mind that we had done the right thing — and while I was waving goodbye to them, I backed my car into a pole and crashed the side of my car. Charlize ran up: ‘Oh my God, Ronna, are you okay?’ I said, ‘I’m fine. I was just staring at you guys!’ That’s how intense it was.
While the anecdote sounds almost too good to be true, those who have seen Fury Road are likely to understand where Kress is coming from. The movie is famous for its relentless intensity, and this comes as much from the actors as the action set-pieces, with both Hardy and Theron able to imbue their fights with a vicious tenacity that suits a post-apocalyptic landscape. Indeed, Theron's performance was so acclaimed that it helped kickstart an action-hero period of her career, which has seen her headline movies like Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard.
As successful as this pairing was, it's hard to imagine others in their roles, but Buchanan's book has revealed plenty of other options from over the years. For example, when the movie was at one point preparing to start filming in 2001, Miller wanted both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as the leads - years before they became Hollywood's premiere power-couple. As fun as it is to think about what Fury Road could have been, fans can hardly complain about what they were given, and can only hope that Miller's Furiosa prequel film has better luck than its predecessor.
Source: Blood, Sweat & Chrome (via Variety)
