One of the greatest action movies of modern cinema nearly had a very different look.
George Miller's film Mad Max: Fury Road wowed audiences and critics alike when it was released in 2015, picking up six Academy Awards for a wonderful spectacle featuring car chases, copious explosions and a guy playing a double guitar that shoots fire.
Tom Hardy took the lead role, succeeding Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, the road warrior trying to survive in a post-apocalypic world where everybody is very keen on killing each other in spectacular fashion for what precious few resources are left.
Starring alongside Charlize Theron's character Furiosa, who is getting a prequel movie starring Anya Taylor-Joy in 2024, Hardy put in an impressive performance as a man of few words and plenty of action.
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However, things were very nearly so different, as plenty of other actors were considered for the role of Max, including legendary rapper Eminem.
The Independent reports that Miller had been interested in casting Eminem as Mad Max long before Hardy was even in the conversation, with the director going so far as to suggest the rapper might have been cast had they filmed the movie closer to him.
Miller, whose directorial career includes three previous Mad Max movies and less violent fare such as Happy Feet and Babe: Pig In The City, said he reached out to Eminem about taking the role but 'that’s as far as it went because we were going to shoot in Australia at that point, and he simply didn’t want to leave home'.
He said, 'I think he had the impression that if he could do it out of his home state, then he’d be up for it.'
Filming for Mad Max: Fury Road took place in Namibia, Australia and South Africa, so Eminem would have had to travel quite far from home to play Max.
The revelations are part of an upcoming book titled Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, which also details that the casting process for Max was eventually whittled down to three candidates with Hardy facing stiff competition from Armie Hammer and Jeremy Renner.
An excerpt of the book published by Vulture details how casting the film took almost a year, and that Miller had been impressed by Eminem's performance in the movie 8 Mile.
It also tells how Hardy 'gnashed his teeth and spat' at Hammer while they read together during his audition, leading Hammer to tell Miller that Hardy needed the role of Max more than he did.
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Joe Harker