Tom Hiddleston lifts lid on Mad Max: Fury Road audition

Tom Hiddleston has spilled the beans about his Mad Max: Fury Road audition for the first time.

Earlier this month, Gal Gadot revealed that she had a screen test for George Miller's 2015 post-apocalyptic movie with the Avengers actor, but neither of them got the parts of Furiosa or Max.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast on Friday, regular guest Hiddleston told host Josh Horowitz that he "actually nearly told" him about his audition "many times" but ultimately decided to keep it to himself.

But considering that Gadot recently let the news slip, the Loki star finally opened up about the "acting workout" they endured.

"It was an extraordinary day," he began. "Initially we'd been given speeches from iconic movies, right? I did this speech from (the 1976 film) Network, the meltdown (scene)... The next round, there were these pairings. A pairing of a man and a woman together.

"I remember it being a day - it probably wasn't a day; it was probably five hours or six hours; it was a lot - with Gal Gadot and we'd never met before."

The British actor recalled that he and Gadot were instructed to perform a 25-minute scene in which she could only say "I love you" and he could only say "I'm sorry".

"Invent a scene out of nothing with those two lines... and we went on a journey, is all I'll say," he diplomatically said. "We'd finished, we'd wept, and we'd struggled, and she'd left the room and come back... and then the exercise was stopped, and George Miller's acting (coach) said, 'OK, now Tom and Gal, switch sides, we go again.'"

Summarising his thoughts about the audition, Hiddleston shared, "I felt at the end of the day like we had played every single scene that was possible to play. She was extraordinary. She was so available and so committed.... But I do remember that was a workout. That was an acting workout."

The Thor star noted that he had seen Michael Fassbender and Kat Dennings publicly discussing their Mad Max auditions and has found the recent discourse "interesting" because "it sounds like every audition was slightly different".

Miller ultimately cast Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy as Furiosa and Max.