Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most generally beloved films of the last several years, but the movie didn’t get there without some difficulties and stress. Charlize Theron has spoken before about the battle that the first movie was for her, and specifically the problems she had with co-star Tom Hardy. Despite all the difficulties however, she still wanted to return for the follow-up Furiosa.
At this point, it’s fairly common knowledge that the desert shoot for Mad Max: Fury Road was tough on everybody involved. It manifested in an on set battle between Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, but in a recent interview with THR Theron doesn’t mention the personal conflicts, only that making the movie was hard on her. She says its something that she’s doesn’treally want to go through again, even though she calles the end result “magic.” Theron explained…
Listen, I know I said, ‘Oh, as an actor, you want to be challenged,’ but you don’t want it to be that bad. (Laughs.) It was a long, long shoot. I have never done anything that needed that kind of endurance, and I don’t think I ever will [again]. I don’t know what production on the prequel was like, but I want to believe it was less. And I hate saying this because I don’t ever want to encourage young actors or storytellers to believe that they need trauma or sacrifice because I really, really don’t believe you do, but there’s a little bit about the circumstances around that movie that I think gave it the magic. It doesn’t mean it has to always be that, but I do think somehow the lightning in a bottle that you’re always trying to catch happened on that movie. But, man, it was fucking tough.
With an experience like this behind her, it’s more than a little surprising that Charlize Theron was very vocal in her disappointment that she wasn’t going to return for the prequel film Furiosa. The upcoming George Miller film stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a much younger Furiosa.
Theron says the reason she wanted to go back was that she didn’t realize quite what Mad Max: Fury Road was going to be until she saw the finished film, and thus it sounds like she didn’t always know quite how to approach her performance while filming it. Now that she understands what the goal was, she wants another shot at Furiosa because she believes she can do it better the second time. Theron continued…
You know why? Because I never really truly appreciated or respected George Miller’s vision until I saw [the completed film and] went, ‘Oh my God, this is what was in his head the whole time and I couldn’t hear it.’ And so it’s the one movie where I go, ‘If I had another opportunity, I’d get a little bit more of what he tried to do in the first one.’
Who knows? Maybe, if Furiosa is another big hit we could see yet another film that could bring Charlize Theron back to the role. She’s clearly willing to do it and if George Miller is too it would make all the sense in the world to bring these two back together for another adventure.
