Max Rockatansky Film" ranked him #75 in their Top 100 Movie Characters of All Time. Max Rockatansky Max Rockatansky is the title character and protagonist of the post-apocalyptic action films from the "Mad Max" franchise, which spans 1979 to 2015. He appears in the films "Mad Max", "Mad Max 2", "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", and "". Created by director George Miller and producer Byron Kennedy, the character was played by actor Mel Gibson in the first three films, and by Tom Hardy in the fourth. In "Mad Max", Max Rockatansky is a Main Force Patrol officer tasked with maintaining law and order
Mad Max the meager, terse dialogue too unappealing. Casting director Mitch Mathews invited for "Mad Max" a class of recent National Institute of Dramatic Art graduates, specifically asking a NIDA teacher for "spunky young guys". Among these actors was Mel Gibson, whose audition impressed Miller and Matthews and earned him the role of Max. An apocryphal tale stated that Gibson went to auditions in poor shape following a fight, but this has been denied by both Matthews and Miller. Gibson's friend and classmate Steve Bisley, who worked with him in his only screen role, 1976's "Summer City", became Max's partner Jim Goose.