On Threads, Dennings revealed that “At one point, they had us switch roles. They had the camera and had us like running around the corner. The worst part of it, I do believe, was when the acting coach told us to say the lines without saying the lines, encouraging us to just make noises instead of the lines.” She noted that Hardy seemed to thrive in the acting exercise, but that she was “dying.”
Dennings felt moved to share her audition story after an earlier interview with Michael Fassbender about his own Fury Road experience started recirculating on social media. Fassbender had spoken of his trial for Miller as “one of the worst auditions” he’d ever done, adding, “Oh my God, it was awful.”
Fassbender also admitted to arriving late to his audition. “I arrived, and I was like, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and they were like, ‘Fine.’ And then George Miller has this acting coach… and it was like, it was so excruciating,” he recalled. “I’ve been classically trained, so I have my process of, obviously, there’s an objective that the character has and activities that I’m gonna play to get it. So I felt like you’re teaching Granny how to suck eggs here. This guy really got on my nerves.” Ultimately, Fassbender said that he “couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
Previously, Hawkeye star Jeremy Renner revealed that his Fury Road audition was “the weirdest thing,” but also confessed that Miller’s movie was thankfully the last time he had to audition for anything. “It was a whole different experience [than most auditions]. You had to have someone watch you go through the comic and read the script, and then you leave it behind, you have to sign your life away, and this whole thing, security guards, it’s like, ‘what?’”
Though the cast that Miller landed on did a great job and Fury Road would go on to be nominated for ten Oscars at the 88th Academy Awards, winning six of them, none of the awards it was in contention for recognized the film’s performances, focusing on the direction, editing, and visuals instead.
