At the recently held CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Entertainment Tonight had a chat with Mad Max Fury Road star Tom Hardy.

New 'Legacy' Trailer Conflates Original Movie With Mad Max: Fury Road

While talking about the upcoming reboot of the iconic Mad Max series, in which he plays the titular role, Hardy was all reverence for his predecessor Mel Gibson.

"Mel is iconic. And he's Max, and that's it, I won't argue with that, that's brilliant," said Hardy. "But on this outing, George has had 30-something years worth of reinvestment in a world that he created. And he asked me to come along and play his Max for him. And I'm not gonna say no, am I?"

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The actor also said that it was his job to "transmute" director George Miller's vision. Hardy revealed that he knew that he was signing up for a role that came with very high expectations. "It was daunting [and] a bit intimidating to step into an iconic character's role and shoes," he said.

Previously, in an interview, Miller revealed that Gibson was disregarded for the part because he was too old to play the character. While Arnold Schwarzenegger will be seen playing the iconic cyborg in Terminator: Genysis, despite his age, it seems like Gibson wasn't considered because the story could not accomodate the age factor.

"You're picking up the characters and the backstory as you go. And in order to create that backstory, we found ourselves having written two other screenplays," Miller said. "One of them is completed. The other one is in the form of a kind of unedited novel."

The movie also stars Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult.

Mad Max: Fury Road will hit theaters on May 15, 2015.

Watch the trailer for the movie here:

Tags: Mad Max: Fury Road Tom Hardy Mel Gibson