Mad Max: Fury Road cast and crew had to endure extreme conditions while filming

A NUMBER of young starlets from Mad Max: Fury Road have opened up about the extreme conditions they faced while filming in the Namib Desert for six months.

CREATING a post-apocalyptic outback thriller was always going to be a tough ask but creator of action-blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller, went all out in order to achieve authenticity.

The film’s demanding shooting schedule meant the cast and crew were forced to spend close to half a year in the Namib desert, where temperatures could dip to near freezing at night.

Leading lady Charlize Theron was quick to adapt to the dry and desolate conditions, even managing to become one with the dirt and dust.

“When we started the movie, there were all these fancy machines being designed to get the dust on us,” she told Yahoo Movies.

“Finally, I was just like, I’m going to be here five minutes before we shoot, and I will be rolling in the dirt and then we will go.

“Getting the dust from the fancy box or just rolling in the dirt. There’s no difference.”

Charlize Theron didn’t mind getting down and dirty. Picture: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros

While Theron may have embraced the environment, a number of the action blockbuster’s young starlets struggled with their new surroundings.

Zoe Kravitz — the daughter of legendary rocker Lenny Kravitz — said the shooting conditions were nothing like she had ever experienced.

“Usually when you’re shooting a film you leave the studio and you go home at the end of the day,” the 26-year-old told NY Daily News.

“But this meant working and living in the Namib Desert for six months and seeing nobody but basically the same four other people and crew members, and being in the back seat of a car the whole time.

“On any other movie, you can shut it off at the end of the day — we didn’t have that option.”

The actress said now the shoot is over, she is glad she braved the tough conditions.

“I’m very thankful for the opportunity to do that because even though it was really hard and there were moments when I wanted to scream and go home, when it was over and I came home, I felt like I had been cleansed; I had been baptised by the Namibian sand,”she told Knoxnews.

The location was a struggle for the young starlets. (From left) Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, Zoe Kravitz, Charlize Theron and Riley Keough. Picture: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros

Model-turned-actor Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 28, held similar sentiments.

“We were filming in the desert every day for six months so you would turn up on set and you were battling the weather and the elements every day,” she told Esquire.

“It was either boiling hot, freezing cold or dust storms.

“The sets really were these cars; so much of our day was spent sitting in these big rigs, in these big uncomfortable rigs, stuffed in all together.

“It was incredibly physically and mentally gruelling and a lot of hard work. It was a tough shoot for sure.”

Riley Keough and Abbey Lee made the most of their time off. Picture: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros

Co-stars Abbey Lee, 27, and Riley Keough, 25, said they also felt the pinch.

“We had been there for three months, we hadn’t left the desert, everyone was going mad,” Lee told NY Daily News.

“They gave us a week off because we desperately needed it.

“Me and Riley went to London because it’s a direct 10-hour flight and there’s no time difference.

”We just lapped up the hotel life, we drank good coffee, ate good sushi and drank at pubs to do the normal stuff that we had been missing for so long.”

Keough, who is the eldest grandchild of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, added that she crammed 200 chocolate bars in her suitcase before heading back for another three month stint in Namibia

But all their hard work looks to be worth it with early indications the film is a beauty and definitely one to throw a positive spotlight on Aussie cinema. Read the latest Mad Max: Fury Road review here.

Miller thinks CGI would have wrecked the film.

The film, directed, produced, and co-written by George Miller, is the fourth in the franchise and comes 30 years after the first which starred Mel Gibson.

When Miller made the decision to recreate his dystopian world, he opted to do it in the most authentic way possible.

“It’s not a fantasy film. It doesn’t have dragons and spaceships. It’s a film very rooted to Earth,” he told Wired.

“We couldn’t make it artificial, we decided to go old-school.”

This old-school approach meant ditching the green screen and capturing the footage in-camera while battling in the elements of the Namib Desert.

“It’s real people, real vehicles and real desert,” he told CBC News.

“I don’t think there was another way we could do it.

“It would have been nice to do it all green screen, but I don’t think it would have been believable.”

Mad Max: Fury Road is out in cinemas tomorrow.