Shocking new details of Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron’s ‘Mad Max’ feud emerge

Hollywood history is filled with notorious on-set feuds, and the making of Mad Max: Fury Road was almost derailed by the beef between its co-stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron. Maybe George Miller should have cast Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie after all.

Hardy and Theron infamously clashed throughout filming on the classic action film but until now, details about exactly what happened between the pair were kept on the down low.

Thanks, then, goes to journalist Kyle Buchanan for his new book Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road. The oral history of the film’s frustrating shoot is filled with lurid tidbits that will leave you genuinely wondering how it went on to become one of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century.

Excerpts from Buchanan’s book have just been published in Vanity Fair and there are some of the revelations are absolute doozies. It turns out one of the main reasons for the tension between Hardy and Theron was their differing acting methods: the latter favoured a no-frills and sensible style, while the former went full-on “method”, stating in his role as the rough-and-tumble Mad Max between takes.

With Theron being a new mother during the shoot, this was never going to sit well with her, especially when Hardy kept the rest of the cast waiting hours past his call time. As co-star Nicholas Hoult put it, being on-set was “like you’re on your summer holidays and the adults in the front of the car are arguing.”

The “turning point” supposedly came when the pair were set to film a scene together in a cramped vehicle. Theron was there promptly and waited stubbornly in the vehicle, even while knowing that Hardy would probably show up extremely late. Three hours later, and she understandably reached the end of her tether.