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The key to any good movie prop is balancing the need for authenticity with allowing actors to be comfortable while wearing or holding them. Watching Tom Hardy run around with a steel cage strapped to his face in Mad Max: Fury Road might look cool, but a great propmaker can give us that illusion without tearing a movie star’s valuable face to shreds.

With the mask that Hardy wore in Fury Road now going up for sale, we have the chance to get a far better look at how the prop was constructed and what the materials were. As the description of the prop explains, the mask is "a urethane rubber, foam, and leather muzzle... painted a gun-metal gray with flecks of silver-color highlighter, [with] external molded rubber screws and bolts and two interior metal pins to keep the muzzle together." There are also rubber straps to attach it to the actor.

It's a cosplayer’s dream to know exactly what materials the propmaker used to recreate the look of metal and leather and, more importantly, how they made it look like it had been used for years in a desert wasteland. Most of the techniques used to make this movie-quality prop are things that cosplayers have been doing for years – just with a lot more time and budget on their hands.

If you’ve ever wanted to know for certainty that you own something that Tom Hardy has breathed into, this is probably your best and most legal chance to do so. And even if that isn’t something you’re interested in, this Mad Max: Fury Road prop will make you look twice at any cosplayer you see at an upcoming convention. Chances are, they’re wearing or holding something that is made of the same materials. It really is incredible what you can do with a couple of sheets of EVA foam and some rubber straps.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in theaters now - if you got confused (or haven't got there yet), we have a guide to all the big questions with that ending. Get more with articles on Furiosa's new ride, an itinerary on how (and where) to watch all the Mad Max movies in chronological or release order, and the Mad Max movies' entire timeline explained.