Ian West/PA Images via Getty; Jasin Boland/Village Roadshow/Kobal/Shutterstock
Charlize Theron said Anya Taylor-Joy didn’t reach out to her about taking over her Mad Max role — but she doesn’t blame her.
“No, but I get that. It’s always tricky,” Theron, 47, told The Hollywood Reporter in a new cover story regarding Taylor-Joy, 26, playing her Mad Max: Fury Road character in the upcoming Furiosa prequel from director George Miller.
“Who wants to pick up the phone and say, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go do this without you.’ No one wants to do that. So, I totally get that,” Theron said. “And I love George. I know I’ll talk to him again. I think it was just too hard.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Theron said she is “not mad about” Miller, 77, following up Fury Road with a prequel, requiring a different actor to be cast as the younger Furiosa.
“One of the greatest f—ing actresses is picking up something that I only imagined,” she said in reference to Taylor-Joy.
RELATED: Anya Taylor-Joy Says She and Charlize Theron Will Swap Furiosa ‘War Stories’ Over Dinner Soon
Chrisean Rose for The Hollywood Reporter Charlize Theron on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Theron also spoke to Fury Road‘s “long, long shoot,” during the interview when asked about how much has been made over on-set conflict behind the scenes of the 2015 film, which also starred Tom Hardy. She admitted the production was “f—ing tough.”
“I have never done anything that needed that kind of endurance, and I don’t think I ever will [again],” the Oscar winner said. “I don’t know what production on the prequel was like, but I want to believe it was less. And I hate saying this because I don’t ever want to encourage young actors or storytellers to believe that they need trauma or sacrifice because I really, really don’t believe you do, but there’s a little bit about the circumstances around that movie that I think gave it the magic.”
She added, “It doesn’t mean it has to always be that, but I do think somehow the lightning in a bottle that you’re always trying to catch happened on that movie. But, man, it was f—-ing tough.”
At the New York City premiere of The Menu in November, Taylor-Joy told PEOPLE she and Theron will sit down for dinner to talk all about filming the prequel movie one day.
“Charlize was sweet enough — I think both of us ended up in a situation where we were both so respectful of each other that we didn’t want to reach out prior [to filming],” Taylor-Joy said. “The second it was over, once this press tour is over, we’re having dinner and we’re going to swap war stories for sure.”
Theo Wargo/Getty; Kevin Winter/Getty
RELATED: Anya Taylor-Joy Wraps Production on Mad Max Movie: ‘Thank You for Making Me Tougher’
“It is an entirely unique situation and I only finished it 13 days ago and was then thrown into this circus, so I think it’s going to take me a second to understand what’s going on,” she said.
“But I feel really grateful to be here and I feel so grateful that I got to work with the unbelievable creatives that man Furiosa,” Taylor-Joy told PEOPLE. “The Mad Max world is entirely unique and epic at a scale that I can’t even [describe].”
