Rev your engines, polish your chrome domes, & stock up on eyeliner as ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ roars into Irish cinemas this summer. It tells the origin story of Furiosa, the warrior queen character originally played by Charlize Theron in 2015’s Oscar-winning ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’. Anya Taylor-Joy plays a young Furiosa, who falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).
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Furiosa is set 45 years after the apocalyptic event known as ‘The Collapse’, which follows the events seen in the 1981 film ‘Mad Max 2 – The Road Warrior’.
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While 2015’s ‘Fury Road’ took place over the course of just three days & 2 nights, the timeline of this prequel is a lot heftier & spans 15 years of Furiosa’s life.
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Director George Miller has received 6 Oscar nominations so far for his work on ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’, ‘Babe’, ‘Happy Feet’ & ‘Max Max: Fury Road.’
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Actress Anya Taylor-Joy completed over 10 month’s of intense training to prepare for the lead role of Furiosa.
ORIGIN STORY
The story of Furiosa was written at the same time as 2015’s ‘Fury Road.’ It was intended to be an on-set guide for actors to flesh out the world & give a backstory to their characters. Actress Charlize Theron, who originally played Furiosa, loved her character’s backstory & was keen to return in this prequel but Miller didn’t feel technology was good enough to de-age actors, so launched a search for a young Furiosa.
IRISH MAX
George Miller’s first choice to play Mad Max in the original 1979 movie was Irish born actor James Healey. The actor declined the role because, with only 16 lines in the film, he found the character’s terse dialogue too unappealing for his vocal acting. No doubt James felt a little mad after the film found huge success.
DOCTOR MILLER
Director George Miller originally trained as a doctor & kept practicing medicine after 1979’s original ‘Mad Max’ because even though it was successful, he didn’t think he had it in him to be a filmmaker. The idea for the original ‘Mad Max’ was sparked when he was a junior doctor & met a policeman who had attended his own son’s fatal accident. Miller revealed that the image really stuck with him & ended up writing a film around it.
FRAUDS
“They’re complete frauds to me” joked director George Miller when joined on stage by Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy at Cinema con last month. The director who spent months filming, followed by a year in the cutting room looking at the characters daily said they were unrecognisable to him outside of their badass costumes & makeup.
LEARNER DRIVER
Motorbikes, cars, trucks you name it Anya Taylor-Joy can drive it on screen! But just not on a public road, as the Furiosa actress still hasn’t got her drivers license. “I can pull some really crazy tricks in a car” she joked, “but I have yet to be able to parallel park.”