Anya Taylor-Joy is set to play the younger version of the taciturn metal-armed warrior Imperator Furiosa, earlier played by Charlize Theron, in the upcoming film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Director George Miller picked Taylor-Joy after an audition where she nailed her performance of a portion of the 1976 film Network. She believed that Miller cast her in the role due to the one quality that she portrayed in her versatile roles.
The EMMA. actress revealed in a recent interview that her eyes did most of the acting in her different roles, which she noticed only while filming Furiosa. Interestingly, she first caught Miller’s eye with her performance as Sandie in Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho.
Anya Taylor-Joy Believes George Miller Picked Her For This Quality
In Mad Max: Fury Road, Charlize Theron surprised everyone with her gritty performance as Imperator Furiosa. Fans wanted to see more of Furiosa and George Miller also planned a film exploring the events after she took control of the Citadel. However, the sequel film got delayed and Miller turned his focus on a prequel film exploring the character’s past.
In the 2015 film, Theron’s character did not do much talking but she was a woman of action. It appears that Miller found the same qualities in Anya Taylor-Joy as well. Speaking to Variety about her role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Taylor-Joy shared that Miller chose her because the character needed to be a pretty silent one.
Taylor-Joy debuted in Robert Eggers’ The Witch and did many versatile roles following the folklore horror movie. However, she hadn’t noticed until filming Furiosa that most of her roles communicated mainly through her eyes rather than her words. She shared with Variety:
“Furiosa doesn’t talk much. She’s a pretty silent character. I hope that’s part of the reason George chose me. Until I was doing Furiosa, I didn’t quite realize that’s been a lot of my career — a lot of my career has played out in my eyes.”
Miller also contributed to bringing out the intense character in her by placing several restrictions on her during filming. Taylor-Joy remembered one consistent note from the director during filming. He would ask the actress to redo several scenes, the second time with her mouth closed. He believed that when her mouth was open, she looked too young and immature for the part. She shared:
“We’d do takes where he’d be like, ‘Do it again with your mouth closed.’ He has a thing about my mouth. He thinks when my mouth is open, I look too young.”
If everything goes well, fans will get to see another magical performance from the young actress who recently appeared as an unborn baby in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune 2. Her appearance in the film was kept a secret until she appeared for the screening of the film.
Anya Taylor-Joy Was Moved To Tears After Watching Her Performance in Furiosa
Anya Taylor-Joy spent months in the wastelands of Australia filming for the George Miller film. She revealed to Variety that she had to look dirty most of the time and had to apply seven layers of makeup. She shared that she felt like “a creature from Black Lagoon” when she saw herself in the mirror with all the makeup. She revealed that she realized at one point about not seeing anyone other than the cast & crew for almost two months in the wastelands.
However, the pay-off to her challenges and her ‘jaw-clenching’ performance was rather emotional. She revealed that she couldn’t view the first three minutes of the rough cut of the film without crying. The Menu actress shared that she was traumatized by her experience in the film. She shared with Variety:
“Within the first three minutes, I’m crying. And afterward, I cannot speak. I found it very traumatizing to watch.”
Besides Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth plays the villain Warlord Dementus and Tom Burke plays Praetorian Jack in the film. Furiosa is scheduled to be released in the United States on May 24, 2024.
