After all that blood, sweat and Tom-Hardy-feuding, Charlize Theron won’t be reprising her role as Imperator Furiosa in the forthcoming Mad Max prequel.
Director George Miller will cast another actor to play a younger version of Charlize’s character, which the Oscar-winning star admits is a “little heartbreaking” in her first interview about the film.
“It’s a tough one to swallow. Listen, I fully respect George, if not more so in the aftermath of making Fury Road with him,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
“He’s a master and I wish him nothing but the best. Yeah, it’s a little heartbreaking, for sure. I really love that character [Furiosa] and I’m so grateful that I had a small part in creating her. She will forever be someone I think of and reflect on fondly.”
Charlie also said that she’d have loved to “see that story continue,” but that she ultimately trusts George Miller’s vision for the future of the franchise.
The director previously said that while he considered using technology to de-age Charlize for the prequel role, he ultimately decided against it, noting the valiant but ultimately distracting CGI used in The Irishman.
Instead, actors like Jodie Comer of Killing Eve fame and Emma star Anya Taylor-Joy have reportedly been eyed to replace her.
Charlize seemed to suggest that movie audiences wouldn’t have cared about her age, noting that viewers were fine, for example, with the casting of British actors to play historical Russian characters in the critically acclaimed HBO series Chernobyl.
“We get so hung up on the smaller details that we forget the thing that we emotionally tap into has nothing to do with that minute thing that we’re focusing on,” she said.
And as for her tension with former co-star Tom Hardy, which resurfaced in a recent oral history of the blockbuster, it appears that Charlize has indeed buried that hatchet back in the desert.
“That’s the great thing about time, right? It gives you a moment to really reflect and have all of those things permeate,” Charlize said of how both she and Tom have acknowledged their past faults on set.
“That’s evolution. That’s how we learn. That’s how we become better. So that was not a hard thing for me to do. It’s just the truth.”
Should you long for more Charlize in ass-kicking mode, rest assured that she does plenty in her new Netflix film, The Old Guard, as well as the much-awaited Atomic Blonde sequel, which she confirmed is in active development.