Tom Hardy was notorious for always being late on Mad Max set; Charlize Theron made ‘deliberately provocative’ decision to confront him, started ‘swearing her head off’

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Things got out of hand when, after weeks of discomfort, Theron and Hardy had a public blow-up when he failed to show up on set on time. Theron decided to make a point by remaining in her position, in full makeup, for hours as she and the entire crew waited for Hardy. Camera operator Mark Goellnicht recalled what went down. “I remember vividly the day. The call on set was eight o’clock. Charlize got there right at eight o’clock, sat in the War Rig, knowing that Tom’s never going to be there at eight even though they made a special request for him to be there on time. He was notorious for never being on time in the morning. If the call time was in the morning, forget it—he didn’t show up.”

First assistant camera operator Ricky Schamburg wondered if this was ‘some kind of power play’ but said that it felt ‘deliberately provocative’. Goellnicht continued, “Gets to nine o’clock, still no Tom. ‘Charlize, do you want to get out of the War Rig and walk around, or do you want to…’ ‘No, I’m going to stay here.’ She was really going to make a point. She didn’t go to the bathroom, didn’t do anything. She just sat in the War Rig. Eleven o’clock. She’s now in the War Rig, sitting there with her makeup on and a full costume for three hours. Tom turns up, and he walks casually across the desert. She jumps out of the War Rig, and she starts swearing her head off at him, saying, ‘Fine the f**ing c**t 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 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.”

Producer Denise De Novi was flown in to mediate tensions between the two stars. “It got to a place where it was kind of out of hand, and there was a sense that maybe sending a woman producer down could maybe equalize some of it, because I didn’t feel safe,” Theron said. But the film’s primary producer Doug Mitchell didn’t allow her on set to ‘protect’ director George Miller, who felt that having an executive around could harm the film. Miller said, “There are things that I feel disappointment with about the process. Looking back, if I had to do it again, I would probably be more mindful.”

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Theron and Hardy both took accountability for their behaviour. She said in the book, “I don’t want to make excuses for bad behavior, but it was a tough shoot. Now, I have a very clear perspective on what went down. I don’t think I had that clarity when we were making the movie. I was in survival mode; I was really scared s**tless.” Hardy added, “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.”

Neither Hardy nor Theron returned for Miller’s latest film, the prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular character, the film was released in theaters on May 23.