Kat Dennings just made a video about her surreal experience auditioning for Mad Max: Fury Road — and you are genuinely never going to guess how this story ends.
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For context, Mad Max: Fury Road, from George Miller's Mad Max film franchise, came out in 2015. It starred Tom Hardy alongside Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, and plenty of others.
As is the case with a lot of big Hollywood movies, loads of very, very famous actors auditioned for parts in Mad Max: Fury Road, including Michael Fassbender, who is one of numerous stars to have previously talked about how "excruciating" the audition process was.
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And it seems like Michael's story prompted Kat to speak about the intense audition she endured for the film.
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Speaking to fans on TikTok this week, Kat explained that she and Tom Hardy were put together for a chemistry read. The pair were sent to audition together for Mad Max creator George Miller and some "other man," whom Kat described as George's "acting coach." And while it might sound normal so far, this audition was unlike anything she'd ever experienced.
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"The dialogue was a couple of pages and kind of vague. And basically, what happened was, an acting class, if it was the worst day of your life," she said, recalling that the audition lasted for six whole hours.
"At one point, they had us switch roles. They had the camera and had us, like, running around the corner," she said, recalling that the process was so long that they had a lunch break in the middle. "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.”
While she was "dying," Kat said Tom "really took to" this bizarre exercise, which might explain why he wound up getting the part. "Like, he was able to be extremely free and come up with really creative ways of doing these lines," she recalled.
Now, a lot has been said over the years about what it is like to work with Tom as a co-star (he and Charlize famously got into a massive feud on the set of Mad Max). However, Kat said that the Brit "seemed very nice" — which is where the story gets even weirder.
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At this point in her career, Kat was living with her parents and didn't have a car, so she was planning to call a cab to get home after the audition finally ended. But, before she could, Tom offered to drive her. "He drove me home. He was so lovely," Kat said, recalling that she even introduced him to her parents when they got back to the house. "He met my mom. He was like, 'Oh, what a nice house!'"
Exhausted from their strange day together, Kat bid Tom goodbye and went off to take a nap in the converted garage where she lived. A few hours later, she returned to the main house only to find that — wait for it — "Tom Hardy is still there, having tea with my mother, and just chatting it up."
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HE WAS STILL THERE?! JUST HANGING OUT WITH HER MOM??!!! I personally think this is amazing, and it sounds like Kat and her mom loved it, too. "I can't say enough about Tom Hardy," Kat said. "I will be a fan of his for life. I think he's a wonderful person, and my mom still talks about him."
In the TikTok comments section, people are cracking up over how bizarre yet "unexpectedly wholesome" the story is. "Sounds like your mum would have aced the chemistry read with Tom Hardy," one user wrote.
As a fellow Brit, I can confirm that this is a very English thing to do. If someone's mom invites you in for a cup of tea, you're not saying no! It's basic manners. You can find Kat's full TikTok video here.