The Mad Max franchise roars back into cinemas this May with Furiosa — but what about Max himself, played by Tom Hardy? Is he on board for the Mad Max: Fury Road prequel?
Is Tom Hardy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga?
No, Tom Hardy is not in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. While this will no doubt disappoint fans of the English actor’s take on Max Rockatansky, it makes sense from an in-universe perspective. Max meets Imperator Furiosa for the first time in Mad Max: Fury Road, so the pair crossing paths at an earlier point in the timeline wouldn’t add up. And even if writer-director (and franchise co-creator) George Miller did figure out a way to work Max into the narrative, he almost certainly would have replaced Hardy with a younger actor.
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Besides, Hardy wasn’t necessarily jumping at the chance to reprise the Max role, anyway. The Hollywood A-lister has previously admitted that he didn’t overly enjoy his time on the Mad Max: Fury Road set. That said, Hardy also praised the finished film and publicly apologized to Miller for his attitude during the shoot. “I got frustrated [during principal photography],” he said in 2015. “There was no way that George could have explained what he could see in the sand when we were out there… I knew he was brilliant, but I didn’t quite know how brilliant.”
Are Any Mad Max: Fury Road Stars Returning in Furiosa?
Aside from a handful of minor players, no — not even Furiosa actor Charlize Theron. Miller initially considered bringing Theron back to portray Furiosa’s younger self. However, he ultimately decided that digital de-aging technology still wasn’t ready yet. “I watched really masterful filmmakers like Ang Lee and Martin Scorsese, doing Gemini Man and The Irishman, and I saw that [digital de-aging] hadn’t been licked,” Miller explained in a 2024 Empire magazine feature. “All you’d be watching is, ‘Look how well the technology works?’ It would not have been persuasive.”
With Theron no longer in the picture, Miller turned to Anya Taylor-Joy to bring Furiosa‘s protagonist to life, instead. The Aussie filmmaker also recast another major Mad Max: Fury Road character for Furiosa, Immortan Joe. While the late Hugh Keays-Byrne played Immortan Joe in Fury Road, Lachy Hulme stars as the tyrannical baddie in Furiosa.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga roars into cinemas on May 24, 2024.
