MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Stunt Double Shares What It Was Like on Set with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron Hating Each Other
It’s no secret that Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy did not get along while shooting George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. The two actors even recently talked about the conflicts they had on the set and said that they should’ve been more understanding of each other because of the situation that they had found themselves in while shooting the movie.
We now have some insight from what it was actually like on the set of the film thanks to one of Theron's stunt doubles, Dayna Grant. She talked about what she saw unfold between the actors during the film, telling Metro:
"It was hard. It was really hard. It was hard because it was, obviously, I had to spend time with both of them and both of them didn’t want to be together. I had to do everything with [Tom] – so usually Charlize would come in and they’d do scenes together but they didn’t want to do scenes together so I was put in her spot to always be with Tom. Tom’s double was always put with Charlize so we actually worked with the opposite characters.
"We knew right from the get-go. We knew from the beginning that it was happening when we were doing the fight choreography … there was tension then. So we were told what was going on. And we were just told to try and make it work as much as possible, which was challenging, because usually you’re all in one big group and working together whereas we were kind of separated."
There was a lot of pressure on the actors while shooting this movie and Theron explained how doing a movie at this scale was scary for her. She previously said:
“The biggest thing that was driving that entire production was fear. I was incredibly scared, because I’d never done anything like it. I think the hardest thing between me and George is that he had the movie in his head and I was so desperate to understand it.”
If fear was the driving factor of that production, of course, it was going to be hard for these actors. Hardy explained, “We moved fast, and it was at times overwhelming. One had to trust that the bigger picture was being held together.”
When talking about the aftermath of production, the actors said that they should’ve been more understanding of each other because of the situation that they had found themselves in while shooting the movie. Theron Said:
“In retrospect, I didn’t have enough empathy to really, truly understand what he must have felt like to step into Mel Gibson’s shoes. That is frightening! And 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.’ In a weird way, we were functioning like our characters: Everything was about survival.”
Hardy went on to add:
“I would agree. I think in hindsight, I was in over my head in many ways. 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.”
While there were major problems on the set of the film, Mad Max: Fury Road ended up being a badass action movie masterpiece. While it sucks that there was so much tension, that tension probably helped the movie in the long run.