Mad Max crew reveal details on Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron's explosive feud

Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road

(Image credit: Warner Bros./Roadshow Entertainment)

The Mad Max: Fury Road cast and crew have opened up on a particularly explosive feud between stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron while filming the movie.

Hardy played the titular Max in the movie, while Theron was Imperator Furiosa. The duo shared the screen – but there were fireworks on set, as revealed in Kyle Buchanan's book Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road.

"It was like two parents in the front of the car," Theron commented, per Vanity Fair's exclusive excerpt. "We were either fighting or we were icing each other – I don't know which one is worse – and they had to deal with it in the back. It was horrible! We should not have done that; we should have been better. I can own up to that."

"Tom turns up, and he walks casually across the desert," camera operator Mark Goellnicht recalled. "She jumps out of the War Rig, and she starts swearing her head off at him, saying, 'Fine the fucking cunt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he's held up this crew,' and 'How disrespectful you are!' 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 up and went, 'What did you say to me?'"

He continued: "He was quite aggressive. She really felt threatened, and that was the turning point, because then she said, 'I want someone as protection.' She then had a producer that was assigned to be with her all the time."

But things did eventually calm down, with Goellnicht explaining: "[Hardy] was a different person by the end – a lot easier to deal with, a lot more cooperative, more compassionate. He's such a Method actor that I think he took the arc in the literal sense."

Mad Max was released back in 2015 to critical acclaim, and there's a prequel film on the way titled Furiosa, with Anya-Taylor Joy stepping into the character's shoes. That movie will arrive in 2024.

In the meantime, check out our guide to all of 2022's upcoming major movie release dates to get planning those theater trips.

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.