Riley Keough Recalls Meeting Husband on Mad Max: Fury Road Set: ‘It Was Extra Life-Changing’
The actress and her husband Ben Smith-Petersen married in February 2015
Riley Keough’s time spent filming Mad Max: Fury Road still proves memorable for multiple reasons. As the actress, 34, appeared on the May 23 episode of SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham, she recalled that she met her husband Ben Smith-Petersen while filming director George Miller’s 2015 action epic. “I’m sure you’ve read all the stuff about it, but it was like, I don’t remember feeling like I was filming a movie ever. I remember being like, ‘I live in this world and I’m totally losing my mind,’ ” she said.
“That was my experience, but it was one of the most beautiful and challenging and amazing, incredible experiences of my life, and all of us who were there, it was so life-changing and, of course, I met my husband, so it was like extra life-changing.” Keough, who plays the character Capable in the Mad Max film, reflected on her time making the post-apocalyptic movie after the show’s host Jess Cagle asked whether she remembers meeting her husband or being covered in dust in the desert more clearly.
“The dust was like — I can definitely still taste it in my mouth. It was traumatic,” she said, before pointing out that her husband, an Australian stuntman, was able to work on both Fury Road and the new prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. “I’m really excited to see it, but he kind of was like, I don’t remember the words he used, but he was kind of like Furiosa was like the version, on set anyways, where they were like, ‘Okay, we can’t do that again. We can’t do Fury Road again. We have to make this, you know, feel like we’re filming a movie,’ ” she said.
Smith-Petersen’s stunt experience includes movies like Barbie and The Suicide Squad in addition to his work on Fury Road. Keough explained in a 2022 essay for British Vogue that she and her husband did not start dating until she traveled to Australia to complete re-shoots on the movie, at which point the couple began spending time together in Sydney.
“We got matching tattoos the third day we hung out, just for fun, never thinking the relationship would go anywhere. We did all these adventures and it was this magical week,” she wrote at the time. “I stayed over with him and the sun came in through this beautiful stained glass. I woke up that morning and was like, ‘I can’t leave him. I feel like this is something really special.’ And it had only been a week.” Keough and Smith-Petersen share a daughter, Tupelo Storm, whom they welcomed into their family in 2022.
