Favorite Pic of the Day for September 18th

Above:

Mad Max: Fury Road

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~Check out today's BIRTHDAYS HERE:~

Tom Hardy as Mad Max

'Looking back now, it's impossible to put into words what being a part of it meant to me.  It left me irrevocably changed.'

Tom Hardy

With so many great scenes on his on-screen nudity resume, Tom Hardy needs more than one post to fit them all in.... Check out Tom Hardy's Actors & Skin on the NEXT PAGE HERE:

The Future Belongs to the Mad

'Fury Road was made off the back of a penguin.'

  James Nicholas 

James Nicholas was Fury Road director George Miller assistant, and provided some of my favorite quotes in Kyle Buchanan's book, Blood, Sweat & Chrome.   If you don't know Miller's name, I'm sure  you know his work.  In addition to writing, producing and directing the first three films in the Mad Max franchise, Miller also directed; The Witches of Eastwick, Lorenzo's Oil, Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two.

It was actually Happy Feet Two that in some ways was responsible for Mad Max: Fury Road  being made at all.   Miller originally came up with the concept for the film in the late 80's, but it took until 2012 to finally get the film made.  In the meantime, it went through hundreds of changes, through the  hands of many multiple creatives, and was started and stopped at least twice, once, just as filming was about to begin.

Originally Miller wanted Mel Gibson back as Max, but with the passage of time, not to mention Gibson's personal and public struggles,  Miller realize the actor was no longer the right actor to step again into Max's shoes.  A casting hunt began with many other actors considered.  At one point, Miller considered casting both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who he thought would be perfect for the film.

In the end, the role of Max was narrowed down to Jeremy Renner, Armie Hammer and the actor who eventually took on the role, Tom Hardy.  Tom had years of critical and box office success in Europe, but it wasn't until Bronson, in 2008, that he was considered an actor who could take the lead of a mainstream box office hit.

After receiving Buchanan's ok from Amazon this past summer, each evening after dinner, I took the book and sat on my porch reading each page and each chapter both quickly and slowly.  I went through the book fast, but kept stopping to re-read certain portions, especially about the process of getting the actors ready for their roles.  Then, later that night, I would re-watch all, or parts of the film that I had been reading about.  Buchanan had me wanting to closely re-watch scenes that were discussed by the actors and creators in such detail within the book.

Although the film is really one long road picture, it's divided into several distinct sections.  It begins with Max's capture, and then moves on to my favorite part of the film, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and the wives, escaping from the Citadel and from Immortan Joe.  The chase is on and really ups the intensity once Max and Furiosa  meet.  The remainder of the film is Max, Furiosa, Nux (Nicholas Hoult) and the wives on the run from Joe and cult of followers. 

Although most may have thought of Mad Max films as created for male audiences, Fury Road is at it's core, a feminist celebration.  There are no stereotyped female characters with Furiosa, the wives, and the fantastic 'Many Mothers' leading the battle to take down Joe and take back their home and lives in the Citadel.  

Although I love all of the women from Fury Road, this is FH, so it's the men that I'm featuring in the next few posts.  Check out more below as well as my Actors & Skin feature on star Tom Hardy on the NEXT PAGE HERE:

Favorite Face of the Day: Ben Smith-Petersen Keough

'I really thrived in the process, I was a theatre nerd.'

Ben Smith-Petersen

There were a lot of ripped, shirtless War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road,. Each War Boy was toned and bald, making them difficult to tell apart.   There was one however, as written in Kyle Buchanan's book, that stood out to me.  Aussie actor and stuntman Ben Smith-Petersen was both written about, and quoted in many parts of Buchanan's book Blood, Sweat & Chrome.

I was initially intrigued reading about the then 19 year old hot circus performer who was discussing his role as both an actor and a stuntman during the making of the film.  Smith-Petersen calls the movie a stuntman's dream as given the non-stop action and intensity, there was one stunt after another to prepare for and perform.  One of the most visually spectacular was the pole sequence  and if you've seen the film, you know it certainly took advantage of Smith-Petersen's circus background.

It was interesting to see the process George Miller put into place to prepare the actors playing the War Boys to prepare for their roles.  Stunt ad physical training was a must, but he also put them through a sort of 'emotional' boot camp which tested many of the actors.  Part of the process was a feminist view on the role of men in war and many acts of aggression and conflict.  Not many directors would insist their action actors look inward at the history and consequences of toxic masculinity. 

It was also on the Fury Road film set that the young stuntman met, and eventually married, his wife Riley Keough.  In addition to playing Capable one of Joe's wives, Keough also happens to be the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, making her the granddaughter of Elvis.   Despite the struggles during filming, it was also a bonding experience for many of the actors, no more so than Smith-Petersen and Keough.

In addition to his stunt work on Fury Road, Smith Petersen also worked on films including; The Great Gatsby, Hunger Games: Catching Fire and  Suicide Squad.   Although the majority of his work has been as a stuntman, Smith-Petersen has been getting more and more acting roles and will appear next in the indie horror flick, The Dead Thing. 

Images below by Blake Ballard

Ben Smith-Petersen on Instagram

Actors & Skin: Nicholas Hoult (Part 2)

'It was chaos out there, to be honest .'

Nicholas Hoult

Skins (2007-2008)

In Mad Max: Fury Road, actor Nicholas Hoult plays Nux, a member of Immortan Joe's army of War Boys. Immortan Joe uses cruelty to rule over the settlement known as The Citadel.  The War Boys actually start out as War Pups, and if they survive long enough they then become War Boys. Most of  them are plagued by cancer and it's because of the his disease that Nux first comes in contact with Max, or at least in contact with Max's blood...

Hoult's Nux has one of the films most distinct character transformations, going from being loyal to Immortan Joe, to working with Max and Furiosa to save the wives and bring them home to take back  the Citadel.  Initially, director George Miller was on the fence about casting  Hoult.  George worried about the size discrepancy between Nicholas and Tom and that the character of Nux was younger than Nicholas was at the time.

'The second audition was four hours long, and I'd never been through something like that.  You were asked to sit opposite your partner, look at them, and say everything you're feeling and thinking.  We were also given these single words or phrases to repeat over and over again to each other for about twenty minutes.'

Nicholas Hoult

When Nicholas left the room, George turned to casting director Ronna Kress, who been championing for Nicholas for the role, and said, 'Yes, I see it now.'  Nicholas was quickly hired for the role.  I previously posted an Actors & Skin piece on Hoult back in 2020, (HERE:)  For this piece, I updated with a few more caps and another hot naked walk-a-way from Hoult from the series The Great. 

True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)

The Great (2020-2021)