[imagesource: Warner Bros.]

2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road received 10 Oscar nominations, including the Best Picture and Best Director categories, eventually going on to win six.

Those included Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Achievement in Production Design.

It’s regarded by some as one of the best action movies of all time, and director George Miller’s crowning glory.

Rumours around the on-set feud between Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy have swirled for years, with the full extent of the animosity revealed in a book by New York Times film writer Kyle Buchanan, Blood, Sweat & Chrome.

Much of the book focuses on the ugly rift between two of the lead actors, reports The Telegraph:

As Imperator Furiosa and “Mad” Max Rockatansky Theron and Hardy clashed everywhere and over everything. And that was when they were actually talking to one another. “It was a tense atmosphere at times,” Nicholas Hoult, who played “War Boy” Nux, told Buchanan. “It was kind of like you’re on your summer holidays and the adults in the front of the car are arguing.”

“It was like two parents in the front of the car,” Theron confirmed. “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.”

One of the biggest causes of animosity between the pair was Hardy’s inability to stick to the schedule.

Theron had recently adopted and wanted to minimise the amount of time she had to spend on-set in Namibia’s Namib Desert. Hardy, on the other hand, was often late.

The crew has spoken at length about the ordeal of filming in the desert for nine months, with the heat and looking at “nothing but sand” driving them all to the brink.

A particular display of tardiness led to a full-blown feud with the cast watching on:

“The call on set was eight o’clock,” camera operator Mark Goellnicht told Buchanan. “Charlize got there right at eight o’clock, sat in the War Rig [her character’s modified monster truck], 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.”

…Three hours had elapsed, and Theron had not left the War Rig, when Hardy finally wandered up. Theron jumped out and screamed “Fine the f______ c___ a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he’s held up this crew,” and “How disrespectful you are!”

You can take the woman out of Benoni, but you can’t take Benoni out of the woman.

Good form, I say. There are few things worse than people who think their time is more valuable than others.

In response to being called a FC (you’ll figure it out), Hardy was said to have been overly aggressive, prompting Charlize to ask for “someone as protection”.

Charlize’s stunt double, Dayna Grant, says she often filled in during scenes with Hardy, and Hardy’s double filmed scenes with Charlize.

Whisperings of diva-like behaviour would also emerge. Details are vague, beyond the fact that the diva clearly wasn’t Theron.

“When you’ve got an actor that keeps you waiting… we’re all there at seven o’clock ready to go. You’ve got an actor who’ll be two and a half, three hours late every morning,” said Fury Road cinematographer John Seale in a public talk about the making of the film. “You can’t shoot with the light you want. You’ve got to shoot it when he arrives and he’s ready. So it kills you.”

As fraught as things were, the actors did attempt to make amends.

Charlize returned to her trailer one night to find a self-portrait Hardy had inscribed with the words, “You are an absolute nightmare, BUT you are also f______ awesome. I’ll kind of miss you. Love, Tommy.”

In the years since, both have been honest about what they would change. This via People:

“I think in hindsight, I was in over my head in many ways. The pressure on both of us was overwhelming at times,” [Hardy said].

“What [Theron] 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.”

…His final take away from the film was Theron’s performance as the fierce Furiosa, saying, “Charlize arguably laid down the finest lead character in an action movie, and that credit is much deserved, in my opinion”.

Charlize would later say that “we drove each other crazy, but I think we have respect for each other, and that’s the difference”.

All of that is said with the benefit of hindsight, far from the dunes of Namibia’s desert.

A major plus of the real-life tension is that it translated so well to the big screen.

[sources:telegraph&people]