There have been many big roles that actors have lost out on over the years. Just recently, Matthew McConaughey shared the story of how he turned down the leading role in “The Last of Us,” and now Gal Gadot has looked back on the time she lost out on a major post-apocalyptic movie role. It could be a blessing in disguise, though, as shortly after, she landed the role of Wonder Woman in the DC universe.
The role she auditioned for but didn’t get? Furiosa in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” However, while chatting with Josh Horowitz on his Happy Sad Confused podcast, she didn’t just rehash the past that has been known for some time. She broke down the intense audition process, which lasted four hours!
A Four-Hour Audition Process for ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’
GettyGadot shared that the audition process was “crazy,” noting that “I did my match [screen test] with Tom Hiddleston.” Fans will know from interviews in 2017 that she auditioned for Furiosa at the time, as she told The Hollywood Reporter that she almost quit the business after losing out on the part to Charlize Theron, sharing that her own star power wasn’t big enough for the 2015 movie.
This would suggest that Hiddleston auditioned for the role of Max in the movie. That role went to another Tom — Tom Hardy — and the rest of the movie is history. For Gadot, it was an experience that she will never forget.
The audition took place in winter in London, and she shared how she started off in multiple layers to remain warm. By the time she finished the audition in front of director George Miller, she was just in a tank top because it was that hot in the beautiful London home.
Horowitz asked whether Gadot believed she should have landed the iconic role, and she did. Not because she thought she was better than Theron, but because she believed the work the two of them had done in the audition was “really great.” However, in the end, Miller knew what he wanted to gain from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and he already had a vision for the roles of Furiosa and Max.
Gal Gadot Looks Back on ‘Wonder Woman’
Around the time of getting the no for “Fury Road,” Gadot started to rethink her plans. She explained that it wasn’t her dream to be an actress, and she started to think that it was time to give up on the career, explaining, “I can deal with challenges, but this is not up to me. All this work, and I can’t get anywhere.”
However, just before she went back to Israel, she had an audition for a secret project with Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder. We now know that it was for the role of Wonder Woman in the DCU, but at the time, she had no idea that it was even a possibility. Even the audition scene wasn’t from the movie, as she went on to say, “Now I know I did a scene of Uma Thurman from ‘Pulp Fiction.’ Back then, I didn’t realize that.”
It was after that that she learned that it was all for Wonder Woman. There were three women and three trailers, and they were all kept completely separated from each other. If she thought that the Furiosa audition was crazy, this one stepped up a gear.
The two went on to chat more about “Wonder Woman” and leaving the character behind. They also chatted about her new movie, “The Runner.” You can listen to it all above.
