Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy ''went at it'' during filming for 'Mad Max: Fury Road'.

The 39-year-old actress and her co-star were rumoured to have clashed during the making of the post-apocalyptic action movie, and Charlize has revealed there was plenty of healthy tension between the pair.

She said: ''We f***in' went at it, yeah. And on other days, he and George [Miller, the director] went at it.

''It was the isolation, and the fact that we were stuck in a rig for the entire shoot. We shot a war movie on a moving truck - there's very little green screen.

''It was like a family road trip that just never went anywhere. We never got anywhere. We just drove. We drove into nothingness, and that was maddening sometimes.''

However, Charlize said she came to respect her London-born co-star for his honesty.

She told Esquire magazine: ''I'd rather have that honesty working with someone than someone who fake-smiles through something - especially for actors, when your job is to go for the emotional truth. When you're with somebody and you don't feel like you're in their emotional truth, then you don't trust them.

''I think good actors go all the way. If you want to be a safe actor, and you emotionally protect yourself from things getting out of hand, the performance will show all of that.

''Anyone who really, really, really goes into the deep dark corners of what emotional truth is, as somebody who works opposite of that, you have to be grateful for that. I beg for that. I beg for that on a job, that potency to the stew that makes it that magic that it is.''