Tom Hardy Almost Played Another Role In Mad Max: Fury Road
Long before the actor became Mad Max himself, a young and far less famous Tom Hardy screen-tested for another role in an earlier iteration of Mad Max: Fury Road way back in 2003. Few movies have had as long a road from script to screen as the belated Mad Max sequel, Fury Road. Finally released to rave reviews in 2015, Fury Road was the fourth movie in the franchise and arrived a whopping 30 years after the third, critic Roger Ebert’s favorite Mad Max movie, Beyond Thunderdome.
The sequel’s production process was plagued by all manner of issues, ranging from star Mel Gibson’s availability to the studio’s ill-fated, toy-focused attempts to turn the franchise into a television show during the ‘90s. When Fury Road finally arrived, the sequel proved a huge critical and commercial success, earning acclaim and being named one of the year’s best movies. However, over a decade earlier, Fury Road almost went into production and nearly starred its eventual leading man in a far smaller and less significant role.
When Mad Max: Fury Road was still set to star Mel Gibson in the early ‘00s, the then little-known actor Tom Hardy ironically screen-tested for the supporting role of a War Boy, one of Immortan Joe's disposable henchmen. According to the movie’s assistant director PJ Voeten, no major actors other than Mel Gibson were locked into roles when Fury Road’s pre-production began in 2002. However, the future Mad Max franchise star was one of few people who got lucky when a string of unfortunate circumstances made it untenable for Fury Road to start shooting in 2003 as planned, resulting in another 12 years added to the gap between movies.
According to Kyle Buchanan’s 2022 book Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, the project fell apart when the American dollar collapsed against the Australian dollar, making the sequel financially unviable. Other issues were also conspiring against the sequel, some of which went on to contribute to the 12-year wait between the movie's shoot being canceled in 2003 and Fury Road eventually being released in 2015. However, Gibson aging out of the Max role proved not to be a problem when the erstwhile War Boy Hardy reappeared and auditioned for the part in the early 2010s.
Recasting Max meant that Hardy was no longer able to take on the role of one of Fury Road’s War Boys, but fortunately, Nicholas Hoult proved perfect for the part of Nux, the defector who wins over Max and Furiosa during the movie’s action. Although Max changed faces and Hardy switched roles, Fury Road did manage to hold onto a few stay details from its earlier incarnation. For example, Mad Max: Fury Road was almost entirely shot in the desert of Namibia—which is exactly where production designer Colin Gibson was busy scouting for the movie’s locations when he “got the call to stop spending money” way back in 2003.