Brace yourselves, movie fans: George Miller’s “Max Max: Fury Road” prequel “Furiosa” just wrapped production in Australia. And while audiences must wait until 2024 for the movie to hit theaters, Anya Taylor-Joy’s recent interview with IndieWire has all sorts of updates about the production. The biggest news? Taylor-Joy did all her car-related stunts without a driver’s license, and the actress wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty during the movie’s shoot.
“I’ve been on a different planet for the last seven months,” Taylor-Joy said during the new interview about shooting “Furiosa.”. “I think I need to sit down and attempt to try and digest what’s happened over the last seven months. But I’m incredibly, incredibly proud of it, and so proud of all of the people I got to work with, and just the amount of love and effort and work that went into it, I’m excited to see it.”
“Furiosa” sees Taylor-Joy take over for Charlize Theron as the titular heroine, a war captain who turns against the tyrant Immortan Joe. In the upcoming prequel, Furiosa comes of age as Immortan Joe vies for dominance against another Wasteland warlord, Dementus. And from what Taylor-Joy told IndieWire, expect “Furiosa” to be just as grimy and high-octane as 2015’s “Fury Road.” “It’s the dirtiest and the bloodiest I have ever been, which is saying something, genuinely saying something,” the actress continued. “Any time I get to be dirty or bloody and not perfectly prim and pretty, I’m just having a ball; that’s where I feel most comfortable. So yeah, ‘Furiosa’ was definitely right up my street.”
Taylor-Joy has no issue getting bloody or dirty for film roles. For example, take her two roles for horror auteur Robert Eggers. Her first on-screen appearance was in his 2015 feature debut “The Witch,” and then starred for Eggers again in “The Northman,” released this past April. She bloodies herself up again in “The Menu,” in theaters this weekend.
But unlike Eggers’ horror films, all period pieces that pre-date automobiles, Taylor-Joy had to do lots of gutsy stunts in cars and trucks for her “Furiosa” part. And she did all of them without a proper license. “I don’t actually have a license, so I can’t drive,” Taylor-Joy explained. “I can’t on a highway, I can’t parallel park, but if you need me to do a juicy 180 in a truck, I can do that and not hit the camera people, which is great. Eventually, I will be in a place long enough to get a driver’s license, and then I’ll be really happy because then I can play. But in terms of first cars, I think I’m quite spoiled in the fact that they were built by the ‘Mad Max’ art department.”
Taylor-Joy doesn’t think she’ll have any problem getting a license after her experience on “Furiosa,” though. “That’s the other thing, if a driving instructor gets in a car with me, all I know how to do is crazy stunt driving,” said the actress. “I’m planning on getting my stunt driver’s certificate…so then I’ll be able to do all of my driving in all films, which would be great. But I fear for the poor man or woman that is taking the test with me because gentle, I am not.”
No, gentle Anya Taylor-Joy most certainly isn’t, as roles in “Thoroughbreds,” “Peaky Blinders,” “The Queen’s Gambit,” and “Last Night In Soho” undoubtedly show. But “Max Max” fans still need to wait another year before seeing her take on the Furiosa mantle. “Furiosa” hits theaters everywhere on May 24, 2024.
