Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth star in Academy Award-winning mastermind George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” the much-anticipated return to the iconic dystopian world he created more than 40 years ago with the seminal “Mad Max” films. Miller now turns the page again with an all-new original, standalone action adventure that will reveal the origins of the powerhouse character from the multiple Oscar-winning global smash “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The new feature from Warner Bros. Pictures is produced by Miller and his longtime partner, Oscar-nominated producer Doug Mitchell (“Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Babe”), under their Australian-based Kennedy Miller Mitchell banner.
As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.
Taylor-Joy stars in the title role, and along with Hemsworth, the film also stars Tom Burke and Alyla Browne.
Miller penned the script with “Mad Max: Fury Road” co-writer Nico Lathouris. Miller’s behind-the-scenes creative team includes first assistant director PJ Voeten and action designer Guy Norris, director of photography Simon Duggan (“Hacksaw Ridge,” “The Great Gatsby”), composer Tom Holkenborg, supervising sound editor Robert Mackenzie, editor Eliot Knapman, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson and supervising colorist Eric Whipp. The team also includes other longtime collaborators: production designer Colin Gibson, editor Margaret Sixel, production sound Ben Osmo, costume designer Jenny Beavan and hair and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt, each of whom won an Oscar for their work on “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Kennedy Miller Mitchell Production, A George Miller Film, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” The film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, in theaters only nationwide on May 24, 2024 and internationally beginning on 22 May, 2024. #Furiosa
INFORMATION ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
IN CONVERSATION WITH GEORGE MILLER (Director / Writer / Producer)
Genesis:
GEORGE MILLER: “Fury Road” is a story that happens over three days and two nights. And part of the task was to tell a story in which all the exposition was picked up on the run. In order to do that, we had to know so much about that world. So for instance, if we took the character Furiosa, we had to know where she came from, under what circumstances, what forged her as a person. Where did she learn her skills? How did she come to be in this position of conflict with the world, and how and what are her aspirations? So, we had to write the story of Furiosa before we even attempted to make “Fury Road.” We had the script of “Fury Road,” but we had to sort of deconstruct it and go back. We wrote “Furiosa” as a screenplay, and when we came to make “Fury Road,” we were able to share “Furiosa” with the cast and crew. “Furiosa” was not only about the character, it’s about the world from which she came. And everybody was able to benefit from that script. And we thought, “Hey, if ‘Fury Road’ can get some traction, eventually we’ll make this story.” It’s been nine years since “Fury Road,” and here we are. We’ve got the film.
The odyssey:
GEORGE MILLER: This is a story that follows somebody from the age of 10 to the age of 26. It’s this 15-year saga, an odyssey. And it basically runs right up into the events of “Fury Road,” almost literally. They could almost be joined together as two films. That film is a story that happened over three days and two nights. So, it’s a much more compressed time in which that story plays out. For those who haven’t seen “Fury Road,” it doesn’t make any difference. And for those who have seen “Fury Road,” it doesn’t make too much difference, except that you will understand all the antecedent forces and vectors that went into creating the events of “Fury Road.” They’re basically one long saga.
On the simplest level, it’s about someone who’s taken from home as a child and makes a promise to return home, whatever it takes. And she spends her whole life trying to get home. It’s an odyssey. Now, the purpose of an “odyssey” is not the actual events that happen so much as what’s happening to the soul of the protagonist. So, it’s about what happens to her in that attempt to get home and who she becomes—Furiosa.
Repetition of human behavior:
GEORGE MILLER: As human beings, wherever we are in time and space, we have the same patterns of behavior. And one of the most interesting things about working in the world of the Wasteland is that the films themselves allow you to do that. Even though the stories are set in some degraded future, basically we go back to behaviors that are at least medieval, or pre-medieval or neo-medieval, those at play in the dynamics of power structures, the dynamics between peoples, collectives of peoples and individuals. So, in a way, it’s forward to the past. And as we’re watching it in the present, we measure it against the current zeitgeist and the things that we’re experiencing in our time, because those patterns are basically the same. There’s a notion in technology that the future is here—it’s just unevenly distributed. And I think you could say that about how we are in the world even today. There are some pockets of human behavior which are very clearly futuristic. We’re anticipating where we may perhaps be even a century from now. But there are pockets of human behavior—as I’m talking now—which are very elemental and basically not very much different at all from the way people behaved in their cultures centuries or even millennia ago. That’s the spectrum of behavior that’s available to you in the Wasteland world.
The allegory of Mad Max:
GEORGE MILLER: It was very hard making “Mad Max,” because Byron Kennedy and I had no real experience—we’d never been on a film set before. At the time I’d thought, “I’m not cut out to make films and I don’t think we made the film we wanted to.” And then, to my surprise, it seemed to resonate around the world, particularly in countries like Japan, where they said things like, “Well, Mad Max is like a samurai.” In Scandinavia, “a lone Viking.” And the French, “a Western on wheels.” And that’s when I began to realize that these are allegorical stories in the same way that the staple of American cinema was the Western from the silent era certainly up into the ‘60s and ‘70s, arguably, even today. “Mad Max” was a Western on wheels, meaning that it was allegorical. By the time we got to “Mad Max 2,” I understood all these underlying dynamics and it certainly informed that film as much more of a mythological story. Max fell into that category of the heroic archetype. Having said all that, that’s one of the big attractions to these stories. That’s why they won’t let me go, because the world is so rich and fertile. It’s able to tick the boxes of so many of the requirements of what I believe is a good story.
So coming to “Furiosa.” One of the things I’ve always been interested in exploring is that people are revealed by extreme situations—whoever you are, whatever circumstance you’re in in the world, it’s those situations which tend to reveal who you are. And whoever we are as children, we have to find our own way of navigating the world. We have guides, we have our culture, we have our parents, we have our siblings, we have all the things that influence our behavior. But each individual is revealed by the way they come up against that. And I guess you could say that’s the essence of drama. And what better than to tell the story in this dystopian, post-apocalyptic world. That’s what really got me into this story, “Furiosa.” Furiosa is one of those children—and I’ve certainly known them—who, at a very young age, have tremendous resources, tremendous skills, and learn very quickly from their mistakes. They manage to find their way in the world without being overcome and destroyed. And I’ve always admired that. There are people I know who have gone through things and seem to overcome them and develop strengths that are incredibly impressive. And I find that very fascinating. And that’s why we told the story of Furiosa.
Finding Furiosa:
GEORGE MILLER: I’d seen Anya in “The VVitch,” way back in the time “Fury Road” came out—she was very young then—and then I saw her in an early cut that Edgar Wright showed me of “Last Night in Soho.” When I saw her on the screen, I thought, “There’s something very compelling about her.” Very, very present, fierce and resolute, even in the character, singing and dancing. She had those skills already, which I think is a really good marker of a skilled actor. They have a lot of precision, physically, and therefore I think ultimately emotionally. When the film finished, I talked to Edgar about it. “Anya, I think she would be really good for—” And I think I got that far in the sentence and he said, “Do it, do it! She’s got everything you need. She’s there.” And I couldn’t believe I didn’t even mention Furiosa. Edgar is someone for whom I’ve got tremendous respect—his instincts, his process and so on. It wasn’t just, “Oh, she’s great…” It was, “Do it, do it!” So, with that confirmation… and he turned out to be absolutely right. Then, I got to talk to Anya, show her the screenplay, talk about what we were doing, and then learned all those things about her. Like Charlize, she trained in ballet. She was riding motorbikes young, as well as doing ballet and so on. And she ventured out into the world with a very supportive family. But ventured out very young. So, there was definitely an overlap with the character. With both Anya and Alyla Browne and the characters, the Venn diagrams overlapped quite a bit for me.
Anya as Furiosa:
GEORGE MILLER: Anya was a wonderful collaborator whose contributions added to the depth of the character, making it her own. There’s no question that she brought something that’s ferocious to the movie—whether it’s in her or not, she found that in herself. And it’s something that I sensed in her work previous to working with her. And it’s something I really got to know in working with her on this movie. There’s something resolute, highly determined, and ultimately ferocious that’s in her. And that’s seen on the screen. She’s not physically afraid—as I say, I think it’s in her genetics. I think it’s in her upbringing. And certainly I think it’s in the way that she took on this work.
Dementus:
GEORGE MILLER: Dementus in this story is a warlord who basically falls into the pattern of a lot of historical characters across many cultures, the people who marauded across a great vast land, absorbing all its resources, including its human resources, in order to conquer many civilizations. That pattern has repeated itself over and over through history and even as recently as the mid-20th Century, we had people with those aspirations, and we’re seeing it again. Dementus represents all of those. In this world, mobility is definitely more conducive to survival. So, he starts to build a great biker horde and we have a sense of how he did that: if after the cascade of collapse of society you were in a continent like Australia, people would leave the coastal cities and go into the hinterland and you need less fuel to do that if you’re on a motorbike. It’s natural that people who at least had that skill were able to get out relatively early, carrying with them what they needed, but they couldn’t establish a place where they could stay put. They basically were like locusts, marauders, eating up what was available… and that’s Dementus, who has the skills and the hallmarks of charismatic leaders to build a great biker horde that sweeps across the Wasteland. He needs to be unpredictable. He needs to be accessible and mysterious at the same time. And—one of the things that you notice a lot about these charismatic leaders—they are, for lack of a better word, very engaging. They have a sense of humor. They have a playfulness that can draw you in. They have to be very skilled—they have to beguile. That’s Dementus.
Chris Hemsworth:
GEORGE MILLER: I’ve obviously known of Chris and it was in quite an interesting way. Way back when we made the very first “Mad Max,” we had a group of bikers play the bikers under the Toecutter, played by Hugh Keays-Byrne. They weren’t heavy-duty sort of Hells Angels type bike gang involved in crime. They were a group of people who rode bikes around rural Victoria. And if you remember “Mad Max,” there was a dog called Wonder Dog that would ride on the back of bikes, and it was owned collectively by the group. And years later, one of the people of that biker group, Dale Bensch, who did some stunts on the first “Mad Max,” showed me a picture with the Wonder Dog. And there amongst them was this man called Hemsworth, Chris’ father. Chris’s father and his mother were both social workers dealing with children who were abused—they were pioneers in that area in terms of social work.
So years and years later, being aware of Chris, we decided to meet. I didn’t know anything about him. And from the get-go in the first meeting, I could see that he was incredibly considerate about the world, very observant, very quick to study anything and really had a lot. He was very, very self-aware, understood who he was and how he was perceived by others. And we talked about charisma and he said, “There has to be humor. You need humor to be charismatic. You might look brilliant in a still frame, but talking and walking, most leaders—and I’m sure there are exceptions—have the ability to enchant people in some way.” I asked him to read the screenplay, and he understood the character straight away. And what I came to see in the process of making the film is a very talented, gifted actor, highly intelligent in the broadest sense. He not only knew what he had to do, to achieve that character, but he understood very much how it fitted into the context of the whole story. He understood his character such that I began to rely on him whenever he would say, “I think Dementus would do this…” And suddenly, it became more than serving his performance or the characters, but serving the deeper narrative of the story. Time and again, he was coming up with this sort of stuff. It reminded me a lot of working with Mel Gibson when he was young. Chris was always on set. He wouldn’t go back to his trailer. He’d come on set, he’d sit there. He had a group of people around him, essentially his biker gang, and he was always interacting with them, always prepared. And he was watching everything that was happening. And that’s what Mel did. Back in the days of “Mad Max” and “Mad Max 2,” we didn’t have trailers in Australia and Mel was always on set. And one day I turned to him and he was just watching and I said, “Mel, you’re going to direct, aren’t you?” And he nodded. And of course, Mel became a great director, and I observe that same quality is there in Chris. He understands how everything works. And, of course, he’s very physically gifted, doing all his own stunts and constantly riding motorbikes in his real life, surfing, doing all that sort of stuff. And so he was ideal for this character. Once I met Chris, saw his response and understood what he was thinking and the way that dovetailed, I thought, “Okay, he’s the one who should take on Dementus.”
Becoming Furiosa:
GEORGE MILLER: Anya’s process to become Furiosa, I think she started in her own childhood, the things that forged her, the life she had and her intrinsic personality—there’s something that is very elemental about Anya, a resolute quality. In the process of making this film, I saw a determination to do something well and properly, and it was no surprise to me, knowing that she is the youngest in a family of many siblings. Anya has to drive a lot in this movie. And, of course, I don’t know why, but she had no license. I think she spent more time riding motorbikes. But, whatever the case, she hadn’t had much vehicle driving and she had no license. Even before she was working on the film, she started to drive. And by the time she got to Australia, Guy Norris and the stunt team were sending me videos of her driving, doing wheelies and all the 180 degree turns, those sorts of things. I began to see the Furiosa level driving emerge in the story. And that applied to everything, the use of firearms. She is someone who could adapt very quickly to these new skills, and I think that’s what made Edgar say, “Do it, do it!” He understood all that. She’s very skillful at dancing and singing and I thought, if she could do that, she could turn her head to anything physical, particularly a physical role like this. She, like the Mad Max character throughout all of these, and indeed Furiosa in “Fury Road,” they’re very laconic characters. They have to be able to do a lot simply by being there in front of the camera. Words are used as a form of pageantry. They’re not recreational in the world of the Wasteland. They’re simply there to communicate essential information. And so all these characters don’t say much, but they certainly have to say a lot by being present in front of the camera, in the experience and their interaction with the other characters. And Anya has that in spades.
Praetorian Jack:
GEORGE MILLER: Praetorian Jack is a Praetorian in the same way that Furiosa began in “Fury Road,” as an Imperator and a Praetorian—someone higher up in the dominance hierarchy of the Wasteland, the top of which is The Immortan Joe. And so, Praetorian Jack is the one with whom Furiosa’s absolutely forced, by circumstance, to collaborate with in her determination to get home. He is a pretty much classic warrior, as he points out in the story. His way of surviving and being in this world is to be a skilled warrior, in particular, being a road warrior driving this vehicle as a Praetorian, in the service of Immortan Joe. He’s a lot like other soldiers and, as he points out, his mother and his father were warriors and they were looking, even as the world fell, for a righteous cause, a virtuous cause… and they never found it. You hear that over and over again from soldiers—they say that ultimately, you’re there as a professional soldier. But the cause is driven by others and is not necessarily virtuous. That’s the dilemma of the soldier and that’s played out with Praetorian Jack. He becomes not only the means by which she becomes a warrior, but as an adult, the means by which she becomes the Imperator Furiosa and eventually a Praetorian.
I had a number of people in mind once we’d cast Anya and Chris. Nikki Barrett, the wonderful casting agent, made a list of people and, in that, her first ten favorites. I read the name Tom Burke, and immediately it was instant. I didn’t even read the rest of the list. Having worked with Tilda [Swinton], I knew of Tom Burke because, of course, Tilda works with Joanna Hogg. I had seen him in “The Souvenir,” and I was really struck by him. And then I saw a couple of other things he’d done, and the moment his name was there, I swear I didn’t read the rest of the list. I called Nikki and said, “It’s Tom Burke.” And again, that was one of those strong intuitive leaps that I’m really glad I made, because he was just so great and slotted into the movie, the characters and the process really, really well.
Vehicles and character:
GEORGE MILLER: “Furiosa” happens over the 15 years, so you’ve got big time jumps, and it’s basically the odyssey of one character who undergoes a number of trials, accumulating the skills which are going to get her to fulfill her objective, which is to get home. In amongst all these trials, there are a number of action scenes, and they tend to increase in intensity as the movie goes on. And the one thing that you can’t do—if you’re doing a prequel or a sequel of a movie that follows a movie that already exists—is repeat the same tropes that you established in the previous film. But on the other hand, there is an obligation to tell the story in the same way. So there are several action sequences in this, including a pivotal one in the center of the movie, The Stowaway, where Furiosa stows away in this great War Rig—it’s the Wasteland equivalent of building some magnificent spacecraft that’s going to take us to Mars or beyond.
One of the things that we’ve tried to be careful to do in both “Fury Road” and “Furiosa” is have the vehicles represent the characters—they’re extensions of the characters in the same way that costume, hair and whatever else is, including weapons and all the artifacts they carry. So Max’s vehicle is his V8 Interceptor—it’s very much Max. Dementus changes through the saga, with red Dementus driving his chariot bike, and he later ends up in a big monster truck as his character obtains more access to fuel, more grunt and whatever—that becomes his character. Mary Jabasa, she starts off on a horse, and goes from a clapped out broken bike to the thunder bike. And Furiosa ends up helping build this War Rig, which is a big advance on the War Rig that featured in “Fury Road.” That represents her need to escape. As she becomes a Praetorian herself, that War Rig expands to a double tanker War Rig that she and Praetorian Jack have together, which kind of represents them. So the vehicles are a part of characters, just like the action sequences have to reveal character. That’s very much the way we look to design the architecture of these stories.
Action sequences and character:
GEORGE MILLER: Well, of course there are action sequences—I’m addicted to that. Film language, which is pretty much only 150-years-old, is a brand new language. It’s learned very quickly. And it’s a universal language—even little kids, wherever they are in the world, understand the syntax of cinema. And for me, action is pure cinema. Hence, I can’t help myself. That’s what’s really interesting to me, providing it serves the characters in the story. So of course, there’s action in “Furiosa,” there’s a lot of it and it’s different. I think if it just repeated what we did in “Fury Road,” then it would be seen as a cynical exercise—every time you see something basically repeating what was successful in the past, people become anesthetized to it. It has to have something very fresh about it. It has to be uniquely familiar. I think I can say that the action in “Furiosa” is uniquely familiar to “Fury Road.”
Music and sound:
GEORGE MILLER: Rob Mackenzie, supervising sound editor, and Tom Holkenborg, our composer, they both got involved with each other early. Normally in the mix, at least traditionally, there’s always a battle between the composer and the sound design people—we can’t hear the sound, or we can’t hear the effects, or we can’t hear the score. But, they basically became the one thing. Essentially, the music is the internal narrator of the story, not preempting the audience’s response. I think in the past, sometimes out of desperation, I’ve used music in my films as a way of telling the audience what to feel, because I wasn’t certain they would feel it. This is not meant to be that. As an internal narrator, music takes what is specific to the character and, at certain moments when necessary, basically signals to the audience—or implies or invites the audience to feel—that the specific of the character becomes a universal. We’re always in stories going from the specific of the character to the larger universal themes. And that’s, I think, what music does best.
IN CONVERSATION WITH DOUG MITCHELL (Producer)
Scale:
DOUG MITCHELL: “Furiosa” is an epic story. When George—and with help of Guy Norris and 200 stunt people—steps out to do an action sequence… In this film, the biggest one is a sequence of like 15 minutes, but it’s known in our world as a story sequence. What you get is a hugely orchestrated action symphony, a rock-and-roll disaster, which goes from the start of the first attack and it just keeps rolling. And it has the best of George’s skills of delivering action in a really, really interesting way.
Anya as Furiosa:
DOUG MITCHELL: Anya jumped in with both feet way before pre-production. She was very enthusiastic and incredibly professional. She worked with a team of multiple trainers. She definitely had to go through very strict and heavy training, in the sense both physically, but also in terms of the vehicles and the motorbikes. We had her working with these different professionals—personal trainer, action trainer, fighting trainer, driving trainer—and she really enjoyed it. She took on a huge commitment and worked on all of these skills to have the abilities to give a really tremendous performance in the role.
Chris as Dementus:
DOUG MITCHELL: What was really interesting with Chris was watching his meeting with George, and the turns the discussion took. When they got to talking about villains, he said that they weren’t just table thumpers and screamers, people running around chopping people’s heads off—yes, some are. But, many of them have one characteristic. They’re often charismatic, very likable. And I think what started, which was an echo between George and Chris, was this idea that you play against kind. You know, if you’re an evil man, you hide that, as we see. And Chris was in 100%, like even before George was offering it. And it was the most extraordinary sense of him doing it for the right reasons: it was the quality of the story and the respect for George as a filmmaker.
I suspect Dementus’ insanity is exacerbated by a grief that he could never overcome. No matter how much vengeance he sought, it just darkened and opened the hole bigger and bigger. The missing part of him was never there, and he plays it in this sort of humorous way. Chris plays Dementus in a way that he’s likable and yet the actions are unforgivable. And the sense of why he’s doing it is not really clear. But, there’s a sense of pain that he’s able to withhold. I mean, if he’s hurt, he doesn’t care. Ultimately, he doesn’t have the moral fiber to realize that killing, just to make an example or teach a lesson, is not okay.
The singularity of “Furiosa”:
DOUG MITCHELL: “Furiosa” stands on its own, but it’s also linked to the Mad Max saga, not only in its title, but because of the type of action and the way that it’s captured. We have vehicles that are new and unique. The War Rig is a stunning improvement, even though it’s historically before “Fury Road.” It’s a silver beast, a real monster. And we have an aerial attack going on, with a zeppelin-styled biker descending from the skies, throwing bombs on the War Boys who are defending this rig—the back end has a Bommy Knocker that spins, knocking bikers coming in attempting to mount it. It’s like a fortress, a ship carrying precious cargo, rolling through the desert, armed to the teeth with War Boys. Typical Mad Max with the stunt teams that were onboard—I’d say, we had like 52 characters, 200 stunties. It went on for about 78 days, we were shooting this thing, three to four setups a day. The temperament in shooting this thing, the endurance and skill of the stunt teams and how they managed it all… it was tremendous.
Stunts and safety:
DOUG MITCHELL: Guy Norris, his teams and the safety coordinator, they have one priority: safety. Make sure nobody gets hurt. When you shoot these things, it’s not who’s the biggest cowboy that can jump off the biggest rig—it’s definitely done bit by bit in a measured way. And it’s following a preset plan that George has outlined with Guy using the proxy Toybox system. So, we’re actually aware that the dynamics of what we’re going to try and shoot is not visual effects required. I mean, we will use that if we need to make things safe and enhance things. I think one of the reasons the Mad Max films have continued to resonate is there’s a truth behind them—something that everybody brings to the party based on George’s storytelling skills.
IN CONVERSATION WITH ANYA TAYLOR-JOY (Furiosa)
Auditioning / Getting the Part:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: I remember it was mid-lockdown and I got a text from a filmmaker who I’ve worked with—Edgar Wright—who said, “George Miller wants to talk to you,” and immediately, my whole body kind of electrified. And we started with a Facetime, first and foremost, where we just got to know each other. He was asking all of these slightly cryptic questions: How good I was on a motorcycle, was I willing to do my own stunts? And he said, “Listen, we’re doing the prequel to ‘Fury Road,’ we’re telling the story of Furiosa, and would you mind auditioning for it? I want you to do a speech from the movie ‘Network.’” I was thrilled because, first and foremost, I am a huge fan of this franchise and so just the idea of being able to jump in and be a part of this world was massive for me. And then when I read the “Network” script, it made a lot of sense. The scene is essentially a news broadcaster demanding of people to stand up and fight for what’s right, because the world that they live in is diabolical. I think I sent maybe two or three takes in, and then George would call me with these minute little notes. And I’d go okay, and go back and do it again—we were doing it in real time. And just getting the job, I’ll never forget—it didn’t feel real when I knew that I had it. I remember the day that it came out online. I was in my apartment by myself in Belfast, shooting “The Northman,” and I just ran around the whole apartment, screaming. I was so, so, so excited to tell the story.
Owning the character:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: I think you have to make it your own, we’re all so individual. I think you can stay true to the core principles of a character, but I felt really lucky that from the moment I read the script… I’ve only felt this way about three characters before. The first was my first ever film, “The Witch,” which I didn’t realize until the movie ended that the characters were real for me, so I didn’t know I was on that journey with Thomasin. For Beth in “The Queen’s Gambit,” I very much knew that that was a story I could tell, because I felt like I was slightly ahead of it, and I could tell it with hindsight. Furiosa, the second I read it, I was like, “Okay, this is going to be one of those ones where it’s very difficult to separate yourself, you’re going to feel like you are in these scenes and it’s going to feel real.” So, I don’t really think I had much of a choice in terms of my artistry in making it my own. It was just very real for me.
Aligning with Furiosa:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: I remember at the very beginning, George and I would have these really long conversations that would go on for four or five hours, and one day he asked me to justify making the film to him. “You have to pitch me why we are even making this film.” And to me, I see it as a cautionary tale. I see it as presenting a world that is wildly entertaining and supremely beautiful in terms of the artistry that everyone else brings to it. But the reality of that universe is not terribly far off, and that was something that I was very attracted to in terms of telling this story and Furiosa’s rightful obsession with getting back to the Green Place. I think that’s something that if people haven’t already caught on to that they are going to start catching on to that relatively soon—to protect our planet. In terms of the performance aspect of it, I have so much love and admiration for Furiosa and she’s so close to my heart that I just wanted to get it right. I was very much in Furiosa’s head and so it was hard to let go of her. I hope that meant that something worked, because all that I cared about was telling this person’s story correctly.
Training:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: So, as of yet, I do not have a driver’s license—so I can pull a juicy lift 180, but I cannot parallel park or go on the highway. My introduction to driving has been very different to most people. I was really excited by the physical nature of this job. I wanted to do as much as I was allowed to do and George was really supportive of that, so I started training a year before we started filming the movie, alongside my incredible stunt double, Hayley Wright. We went through the exact same training. I have never been very good on a bicycle, so to suddenly get on a motorcycle was a bit of a jump. I just feel so lucky that I got to learn with the best of the best, and I have this incredible community now in stunts because all of these people were so kind and so generous with their time. It was learning how to ride a motorcycle, going up from a 150 to a 450, and then getting really comfortable in the car, because a lot of it is also hitting your marks. And then, I got really fit. What’s crazy about it is I definitely did more training in the year prior to the movie than I was able to fit in while making the film. And yet, I was stronger than I’ve ever been, because throwing yourself around a War Rig requires every muscle in your body. My workout became coming to work and doing the scenes, and I felt quite proud of my strength during that time.
A character of action and few words:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: As an actor, as an artist, I am always trying to put myself in positions where I am forced to grow—a unique situation in which I have to grow in order to be able to perform, to deliver. I never minded Furiosa not talking very much, because that seemed part of the character to me. It seemed very understandable that she’s not terribly verbal. What all this meant for me was that I essentially had body language, my eyes, and potentially breathing, in order to be able to convey something. And that opened up a whole other universe of acting for me, because I had perimeters and I couldn’t really move on either side of those. I had to be inventive about how to tell this story. I think it also made the big moments so liberating, and that really fit in with the character as well. If you think about it, she has very little agency for most of the movie. She’s being patient and taking every little change in her circumstances for a really long time. When she does get agency, I felt that liberation, too. The first takes I just got to explode, and it was awesome.
Furiosa’s drive:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: I think that she is incredibly single-minded. When she sets her mind to something, she will do whatever it takes to achieve it. That begins very early on… Sometimes, I would think, if she hadn’t been taken from the Green Place, what would have happened? She probably would have lived a pretty happy life and would have been fine. This is not something she signed up for. She was stolen. And from the moment that she understands that kindness in the Wasteland is something that is not forgivable, she makes that promise to her mother. That is the only thing that matters: “No matter how long it takes, no matter what you have to do, get back to the Green Place.” And what is fascinating about the story that George has crafted is that once she sees that becoming less and less likely, it opens this entire can of worms—she now has no place to put that determination and that energy. And once that happens, all of that turns on Dementus. She puts all of her pain, all of her loss—everything—on this one individual.
The power of circumstance:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: In all of my initial conversations with George, there were a couple of key phrases that kept coming up. One was “Survival in extremis reveals the true essence of the person,” and that was kind of our guiding light. What is the true essence of each of these characters… because survival in extreme situations will reveal it. The other thing that he kept impressing on me was “Furiosa only needs to learn something once.” She learns her lesson, because in the Wasteland, unless you do, it’s not very forgiving—you don’t really get another shot at it. She is highly skilled, incredibly observant, and finds ways of making herself useful, and that gives her her own opportunity later down the line when she quickly realizes the hierarchy in the Citadel. She understands the best place for her to go to be near these incredible machines, like the War Rig. Geroge wanted me to learn about the mechanics and how these machines work—and I still say, every time I see the War Rig, knowing the things I learned, it takes my breath away.
The evolution of Furiosa:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: When I pick up Furiosa, in earnest, she has disguised herself as a boy, helping to build this War Rig, because she wants to hide herself within and stowaway. Her game plan is to collect supplies, and try to attract as little attention as possible. Stay quiet, because your voice would give away your gender; keep surviving long enough so that you have a shot once you’re out of here. And I think what you see in the sequence Stowaway to Nowhere, as George titled it, is epic in every sense of the word—I mean, we shot it over nine months, and that’s kind of epic. You get to see her acquired skills and you get to know her as this new incarnation through the course of an action sequence; that’s really how you get to know her again, because this is really the first time that she’s been allowed to be herself. It’s the first time she’s not hiding while surviving. There is no time to hide from that moment on. From the meeting of Praetorian Jack—who utterly disarms her, because he’s nice to her and gives her an opportunity, which is counter to everything in the Wasteland—she then rises up the ranks. You see her become a Praetorian, and I think in that moment of her life, she’s the most comfortable she’s been in a really long time. She has the deep love and respect of someone who she can actually trust to get the job done. I think Praetorian Jack is the only person that she trusts as much as herself. She knows that he has her back and will take care of her and that they as a team are better than she is by herself. That moment is interesting, because there’s a part of you that wants her to stay with him in the Citadel. But how could she ever forget her one reason for living, which is to return to the Green Place and fulfill her mother’s wish—what was a promise, an oath? I think it’s an interesting time to get to discover her as a young woman, aware of her skills and feeling comfortable and protected.
The arm:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: The loss of the arm and the building of the mechanical arm is incredibly significant, but for me personally, it was about the lore around it. In this universe, being organic, being human, is at your detriment. Everyone worships machines—she makes herself a machine. And that begins this kind of mythology around her. Making herself a machine, kind of half-car, that is everything that these people worship. It begins a new era of how people interact with her, and I think it also begins an era which you see carried on in “Fury Road,” in the sense that she is rogue, she doesn’t work for anybody. She is her own creation, and she will answer to her own morality and her own laws.
Working with George:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: I have nothing but absolute love, respect and admiration for George Miller. I love him with my whole heart, and he is the sweetest and gentlest man, the most caring man. I think we identify a lot together, because he takes delight in the demented and I do, too. So, when I would suggest something that was very grotesque or gory, rather than look at me as if I’m insane, he’d be like, “Yes, that’s great.” That’s wonderful, because I don’t think people expect that to come from my mind either. I love the care and compassion that he’s given me. And again, there wasn’t a lot of skin between myself and this character, and he was so thoughtful and caring about it. If there was a scene where he didn’t want the character crying but naturally I just did, he would give me the time to go off and cry or grieve. He thought it was beautiful that I cared so much. And I think there are a lot of people that would perhaps find it a bit bizarre, but he never made me feel weird. And I really am grateful for that.
The Mastermind at work:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: George is incredible, because he gives you a month of… it’s not really rehearsals, it’s a month of discussions. From the very first moment that I met him, I said to my parents, “I love working with this man, because I feel like I’m at university.” I had to have reasons for my reasons for my reasons for my reasons—I had to be on it in every single regard. To present something to him, and to get him to change his mind, it had to be. Something that I was really ardent about is I think feminine rage is depicted incorrectly often. I have read many scripts where we get treated appallingly and we sit silently and cry a single tear and… that’s just not true. We are human beings. We have feelings. We get angry. We want to be physical at times, especially for this character, whose entire universe is physical. It was something I really went to bat for, because I really, really believed in it. And once George saw it, he’s like, “Okay, I get it now. I completely understand it.” Now, this is a man who’s running three massive units. I’ve never seen somebody be so meticulous on everything, every decision. I have utter admiration. There’s not a single thing that you will see onscreen that has not been approved, checked, double-checked by George Miller. I find him incredibly inspiring.
An epic, rock opera:
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: The way that George directs everything in this film—it’s a rock opera, you know. There is a beat to it, a cadence to it, which I really appreciate because I was a dancer, so I often act in beats. We would have discussions very early on about action, not necessarily being for action’s sake in this movie, but as a way of getting to know the characters through an action sequence. I’d never thought about it that way before. I thought that was incredible and it definitely felt that way. I think you can feel the character grow throughout the course of a 15-minute action sequence. It’s pretty intense. This film is so beyond the word epic that I actually can’t think of a word for it. Epic in scale, epic in ambition, epic in emotion, epic in action. It is a huge movie, and I think there is something for everyone. I think we’re going to take you on an insane ride that you will be exhausted by the end of it, but also relieved, because we give you that catharsis. And I really hope for young women to come to believe that you are stronger than you think you are, you have more power than you think you have, and you can do a lot with that. There is just consistent pressure, but we’re gonna get there.
IN CONVERSATION WITH CHRIS HEMSWORTH (Dementus)
What started it:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: So, I remember being in London shooting a film, and I went to the cinema and saw “Fury Road,” and immediately called my agent afterward and said, “I’ve just seen the best film I’ve seen in years.” And it was the first time, I think, since I became an actor, that I forgot about the process and what was involved to make that film come to life. The unfortunate truth is that once you start working in film, you know all the tricks and the secrets and so on, whereas watching “Fury Road,” I was so absorbed in the story, in the experience, that I completely forgot the usual questions: how did they do that shot, how did they film this scene, what was this actor or that actress thinking, and so on? I was just fully immersed in the experience as an audience member should be. So, I called my agent and said, “I gotta work with this guy.” And that was a couple years before I was even approached about this role. But, I sort of sent it out to the gods, threw it out there, a little ripple effect… and here I am.
A different experience:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: “Fury Road” was one big chase sequence—which certainly had character, story and heart within it, but it was set on the backdrop of an escape—whereas this film takes place over 15 years or so. There’s more dialogue, and there’s a real sort of Shakespearan style to George [Miller’s] and Nico [Lathouris’] writing. And I think there’s probably quite a bit more dialogue than I’ve seen in any Mad Max film. I had these speeches to learn, understand and map out, and so it certainly felt different in that. Normally, George has such a beautiful way of telling us who these characters are through a look, a single word or a sentence. Here, there is a lot more insight through language and dialogue, which I was really excited by. And I asked George and he said, “Look, you can’t do the same thing again. No matter how good the last one was, the audience wants something different. They deserve something different.” And that’s what this is. This is another unique way of inhabiting the Mad Max universe.
Dementus is…:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Dementus is a complicated individual. He’s a product of this world—the violent, harsh reality that is the Wasteland. He’s been manipulated and sculpted through his experience, and I think that experience was one of immense tragedy, fear, pain and loss. This is what this place is, and everything is so desperate and raw. It’s day-to-day survival. You’re not thinking about six months from now, two weeks from now… you’re thinking about how do I get through this one day, through the night, because everything and everybody around you has the potential to kill you. And so, he’s a violent individual. I believe, like a lot with that sort of dictator mentality, he has a tendency to public displays of violence to instill fear and exercise control within the ranks of the people. He operates that way with the people that he leads, but also with the warring tribes around. He’s a showman, and he thinks of himself as being some sort of sage, a wise spokesman for the Wasteland. Among his gang, there is a cult-like loyalty, and he certainly rules with an iron fist. But I hope people will sense a depth to him that—I don’t want to say that justifies his actions—but gives a little bit of an understanding as to why he’s the way he is and why he does such seemingly harsh, violent acts. I think in his mind it’s about survival. His attitude towards Furiosa, he’s toughening her up. He says that he’s doing it for her. Sure, it might be harsh and tragic, but she’s going to survive anything she faces going forward.
And then the relationship between them becomes very complicated. He begins on some level to see an innocence and a purity to this individual that is a representation of what he’s lost. There is something he thinks otherworldly about her, because she is from the Green Place, and I think deep down inside him a little bit of humanity is awakened. Maybe he thinks that she reminds him of some other time in his life, his childhood, his younger years, before he was brutalized himself. He becomes very intrigued who this individual is, fascinated, infatuated, and then it becomes an almost paternal relationship in his eyes. I can’t speak to how Furioso feels about him, but I think he sees it as his duty as a father figure to take care of her and prepare her for what’s to come. In his mind, he’s doing the right thing. The slippery slope of playing a villain is just to think of them as villainous. There’s a flamboyant sort of nature to this guy certainly, which was fun. George and I had many, many discussions—months of discussions prior to shooting—about who this guy once was, who he is deep down in the quiet places. In the end, each violent or brutal thing that he did, in his interpretation, would come from the right place.
Finding the voice:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Things come to you at different times with characters. I find some of them instantly leap off the page at you, and then others kind of take time to begin to grow. Little things land in your lap that you think, “This could be interesting or different, or fresh and truthful to the character.” I had a lot of time with this script prior to shooting, a lot more than I had with a lot of the films I’ve made. And for a long time I had no idea who he was. I got quite nervous in the lead up to it. I still hadn’t found the voice. Every time I tried to read the lines I thought, “It just sounds like me,” reminding me of Thor or another character. I wanted there to be something abrasive about him, something that was piercing, belligerent and obnoxious. And I was sitting in a park one day with my kids and watching seagulls fight over chips and the stuff the kids threw at them. And they just [sounding like a gull] Eer, eer, err at each other, and something about that kind of sat in my head. I’m not saying I based the whole character on a seagull, but that was one day.
And then another day, I was listening to the horse races, [as an announcer] “Coming down the track, going on the outside!…” And there was something that struck me about the nasality of the announcer’s voice ringing in my ear, which started to feed into the character. And I remember my grandfather had this out there kind of voice quality—but from an Australia 40 years ago. And so I looked at old Australian films, and listened to old interviews and just stole bits and pieces from a lot of places. And then about two weeks before we started shooting, I found the pitch for the voice and had to really work hard to keep it there. It just felt like someone wound up tight and tense. Everything was taut and sharp. I wanted to be as far as possible from the voice I developed for Thor with Kenneth Branagh, which was about being quieter and calming. I wanted it to be unnerving and unsettling. A few decibels above everybody else, almost like he’s short of hearing at times. There’s an obnoxious, aggressive quality to it. Like a seagull.
Qualities that distinguish George Miller:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: Humility and grace within every environment that he inhabits or walks through; everyone means something; everyone is important; everyone has a voice; everyone has an opportunity to throw a creative idea forward; and a real inquisitive fascination with people. He’ll be having a conversation with you and then he’ll realize there’s someone else in the room. “Oh, what’s your name and where are you from?” I think that that curiosity is how he is able to tell stories with such detail and heart. The little things that most of us don’t notice speak volumes for him, and that’s what he goes and expands upon and explores. We think we’ve seen the shape of something and then he shows you what it looks like from another space, another angle: “Wow. I never thought of it that way!” A constant pleasant surprise was coming at something from one direction and realizing there’s a hundred ways to tell this story or this moment and staying open to all the possibilities. And just to see an individual who is so kind that you have every single person on set wanting to show up and give 100%. He has a very unique quality. A lot of people you see in positions of leadership, there’s a sort of intimidating dominant force there, whereas he comes at it from the other side of the coin, which is kindness, openness and collaboration.
Playing Dementus:
CHRIS HEMSWORTH: I’ve played villains in smaller spaces—not any that have been as impactful as Dementus on the overarching arc of the film. It was a real joy. To be able to track a villain from beginning to end—the history, his backstory, the amount of detail allowed in this film—is unlike anything I’ve done before. And I don’t know if I was actively seeking to play a character like this, but you’re always on the lookout for something that will get the fire going. Certainly the first time I read it, it ignited something in me that I hadn’t felt for a long, long time… something from the moment I read it to the moment we finished shooting that has been spinning around my brain, and I’m sure it will continue to do so for a few more years. Good and bad.
IN CONVERSATION WITH TOM BURKE (Praetorian Jack), CHARLEE FRASER (Mary Jabasa), LACHY HULME (Rizzdale Pell / Immortan Joe)
Praetorian Jack’s role:
TOM BURKE (Praetorian Jack): Praetorian is the official surtitle of The Immortan Joe’s bodyguards, but they are branched off according to vocation. And Jack’s role has really chiefly become driving the War Rig, because it’s something he does the best and it’s a particularly high-stakes part of the Citadel’s machinations. Praetorian Jack, his whole life really is within the Citadel and the world of the Citadel—the Bullet Farm and Gas Town—in this endless triangular journey between places. There are echoes of Max in him. He’s an outsider on the inside, that’s how I saw him. George gave me the bones of a backstory—he came from a military family who knew Immortan Joe before he became Immortan Joe. After the fall, there was a deliberate move to get to the Citadel, envisioning that it was somewhere safe without knowing quite what kind of place it was. The backstory I came up with has to do with everything that happened on that route, with most of the fonder memories of his childhood having to do with being on the road. That sort of tapped into his feelings of really liking being in the War Rig—it’s his solace, really.
The War Rig is definitely its own character. George talked about it being “totemic,” and it’s really part of the religious side of Immortan Joe’s world. It’s like a temple on wheels—and beautiful to look at, all chrome and steel. The details inside the cabin are amazing. The gear stick looks like it’s carved out of a femur, and the steering wheel has a massive skull holding a grenade in its mouth, made of screws and bolts.
Furiosa and Praetorian Jack:
TOM BURKE (Praetorian Jack): At some point, and I can’t remember how this came up, but we were talking about a quote: the definition of an intellectual is somebody who knows there’s something more important than sex. We were riffing on it and said that the definition of an intellectual in the Wasteland is somebody who knows there’s something more important than survival, which I suppose is humanity, really. I think Jack has a sense of that. When he meets Furiosa, he immediately recognizes the embodiment of that, and she has this whole idea about somewhere she’s gonna go. He initially refers to that as a mirage when they’re making their pact. He says, “In a few years time, we’re free to chase mirages.” In the arc of their relationship, he comes to have a kind of faith in this place that she’s heading to, and he wishes to help her find it. At one point, it is very much about him wanting to be there with her. By the time we started filming, we were talking about it more like a guy wanting to walk a girl home, almost in some very simple way, however old-fashioned that sounds. So, I think he’s existing in this world—and it’s not an easy world to exist in—but he’s figured out what’s feasible. And I think she gives him a sense of a whole other life, which is huge.
Assembling the action:
TOM BURKE (Praetorian Jack): One of the big action sequences is called Stowaway to Nowhere, and it was 42 pages in the script and will be about 15 minutes onscreen. In the script, the action is all spelled out in a very deliberate way, so it’s very easy to follow. And I didn’t quite know what it was gonna be like filming—I mean, I’ve done a bit of car chase stuff in other projects, and I’d really enjoyed it. I’m used to doing them where you rock up to do a scene and you spend the first half the day getting the wide, then you get the close-up, and then you’re onto another scene. On this, it’s a whole day spent on, ostensibly, three different shots, some of which might be seven to nine seconds long at best, and by the time it’s clocked into the edit, it’s two, three seconds, maybe less. I really loved those days. You’ve having to think about two or three things, sometimes maybe more—occasionally there’s a line in there as well—but it’s very rhythmic. You work it out quite technically, sometimes. You’ve got playback on the stuff you’ve done on other days, which has to match in just before—that’s quite helpful in remembering where you’re at with how much adrenaline there is in any given beat. I’ve massively enjoyed it.
The message:
TOM BURKE (Praetorian Jack): I think it’s as much about humanity as it is about brutality, but it’s about hope and taking a leap of faith with things. I had a line in one draft, something about two people can save the world—I think it was quite good that it went. Because they’re not trying to save the world, they’re trying to find a different one. I just thought there was something interesting and honest about the way they have to exist within the system they’re in. I guess that’s the sort of banality of evil that people talk about. I think that really grounds it. It’s kind of a fable—it has this heightened feel to it, but it feels very real.
Playing Rizzdale Pell:
LACHY HULME (Rizzdale Pell / Immortan Joe): I think every character is a fun character to play. A character like Rizzdale Pell, you can be flamboyant, you can be grisly, you can be nasty, you can go anywhere with a guy like that because he’s a bit of a shapeshifter, worming his way through a power structure. So, I can’t think of any character I’ve played in over 40 years where I haven’t had fun playing the character. And Ris was particularly fun.
Stepping in as The Immortan:
LACHY HULME (Rizzdale Pell / Immortan Joe): I talked to George, and he said, “Oh mate, look, decided that we’d go with you as the Immortan, if you’d like to.” And I said, “Sure. But you know, Rizzdale Pell is in scenes with The Immortan. As long as we don’t encroach on any of Rizzdale’s real estate, because we’ve put a lot of work into this character, you’ve got a deal.” And he said, “I will make all that work.” And so I didn’t ever feel any pressure to bring new flavor to The Immortan—Hugh Keays-Byrne had done all the work. So, all I had to do was just do a refresher course. I went back and watched the special features from “Fury Road” on my Blu-ray box set. I wanted to see what Hugh was doing behind the scenes. I mean, basic things, like Hugh used to smoke. How would he have a smoke in his costume? Well, turns out, the maw just lifts up. And there’s footage of him getting made up, footage of putting the costume on. And, by the way, you don’t wear that costume—it wears you. It’s about 40 kilos. I mean, the boots alone are about 15 kilos. The skirt is 16 kilos around the waist. And there are scenes of Hugh in full getup, running. On my first day as The Immortan, I was like the Tin Man. People were helping me. I was like Frankenstein’s monster; I couldn’t even sit down without eight people helping me, or I’d just tip over and roll down the set. So, it wasn’t a matter of suddenly going, “Oh right, I’ve got to get in the headspace of The Immortan.” We know who this guy is. The flavors that we get of him, though, in “Furiosa” is, if I could put it this way, a corporate CEO under a lot of pressure. This is a very different side to him, which is a guy who is trying to keep the machine moving, making decisions that will preserve the empire that he has created. We’re just finding those different kinds of shades. But the story dictates that you don’t have to suddenly come up with anything new. It’s in the script. So, the only thing—and this is where the backstories pay off—is I didn’t know his relationship with Praetorian Jack, played by Tom Burke. And I just turned to Tom quickly and I said, “Tommy, what is your relationship to The Immortan?” He explained it in 15 seconds: Praetorian Jack’s parents were in the military and served with Colonel Joe Moore before he was Immortan Joe. And so Jack is like a surrogate son in a strange way. Tom said that, and then… Action!
The Immortan’s costume:
LACHY HULME (Rizzdale Pell / Immortan Joe): It’s not an uncomfortable costume to wear. It’s a heavy costume to wear. If you take one element of The Immortan’s costume away, it looks ridiculous. The whole thing only works as a complete package. The hair, the eye makeup, the maw, the breathing apparatus, the carapace, the medallions and medals—three of them, replicated from Hugh Keays-Byrne’s father from his days in World War II, so a nice tribute to Hugh. The belt, the guns, the skirt, the pants, the boots, the layers on top of the boots, the rags and bandages. Underneath this whole costume, which is meant to make The Immortan look so fearsome, his body is rotting. He’s a physically weak man. But you put it all together, it looks utterly fearsome and compelling. And if you can find a quality of stillness with The Immortan, maybe just lock your eyes onto your prey and you can limit your movements. It is so imposing. It’s like a great white shark is in front of you.
The Immortan’s empire:
LACHY HULME (Rizzdale Pell / Immortan Joe): For better or for worse, it works—the merging of the corporations that The Immortan has brought together in a triangular system of barter. You’ve got water and food that The Immortan can provide; you’ve got the weapons and the ammunition that the Bullet Farm can provide for survival; and, of course, the guardian of Gas Town is the provider of the all-important gasoline. And so if we can just trade equitably between the three of us, we can keep our respective corporations running and your employees will get a paycheck. It’s as simple as that. Until Dementus come on the scene, because he’s a delusional egomaniac, and says, “I can do better.” So, he aims to take this over, not understanding that he has one fatal weakness—he’s insane. Dementus by name, Dementus by nature. Not only is he insane, but the hoard that he’s created, the corporation he’s put together, they’re all insane, too. Rizzdale Pell is insane. Fang [played by Matuse] is insane. The Octoboss [played by Goran Kleut] is insane. They’re lunatics and they’re running their own asylum. So, it’s like if you give a lunatic the keys to a Porsche, it’s not going to take more than eight seconds for him to run it off the road and into a tree. But there’s great pleasure watching this as a viewer.
Mary Jabasa:
CHARLEE FRASER (Mary Jabasa): The way I approached this script and this character was, first and foremost, really getting to know the story and then getting to know Mary within the story, and then it became about identifying her skill sets and her qualities. Once you know all of that, then you can start to explore them. Mary Jabasa’s backstory is something that we discussed in the rehearsal room, but it’s something that is unwritten, essentially, it’s unknown. And you explore a number of different possibilities of what her backstory could be that would bring her to where she is in the film. I didn’t really come to any sort of definitive answer of what I felt Mary’s history was. But, I believe that she was born before the fall, and that she made it to the Green Place at a very young age. Now, she is the leader of the Green Place—although the way I worked with Mary was that she considers herself as an equal to the villagers, essentially. And although she’s the leader, she still plays a role in the community, like everyone does. Ultimately, there were three very defining things about Mary that I had to explore as an actor to find her: she is a leader; she is a mother; and she is a warrior.
The capture:
CHARLEE FRASER (Mary Jabasa): The thing that sets the story in motion is that Furiosa is picking peaches on the outskirts of the Wasteland, which I’m sure Mary wouldn’t have approved of, but she is out there anyway. And she comes across a small group of bikers who have discovered the outskirts of the Green Place and Furiosa attempts to disable some of their motorbikes, and whilst doing that, she gets captured and is then driven out into the Wasteland. When she’s getting captured, she blows a whistle, which alerts everyone of the danger… something’s happened. Something’s terribly wrong. And Mary is alerted instantly. She and her right-hand woman jump onto a horse and ride straight into the Wasteland to retrieve her daughter and to protect the Green Place.
Learning to fight:
CHARLEE FRASER (Mary Jabasa): What I love about Mary Jabasa is she’s a badass. I think she may be the only character in the whole film that rides a horse, rides a motorbike, shoots a rifle, uses a machete and has a fight scene. I think she’s the only one that gets to have that, and it’s awesome. I’ve had a lot of fight training to be able to physically deliver what Mary’s capable of doing. I did rifle training, because she carries quite a large SKS rifle. I grew up riding motorbikes, and it was really fun to get back into riding. However, a lot of these motorbikes are road bikes and they’re heavy, plus we’re riding on the sand, which is very difficult. Riding a horse for me was completely new. When I was younger, a lot of peers I grew up with went through a horse phase around 10 or 12. I’m having my horse phase now. I’ve all of a sudden become obsessed with horses. I feel so much more confident around my abilities as a horse rider and I can double on a horse bareback very comfortably. And then the martial arts, learning how to move in a grounded, intentional way for this fight scene—we had profound training sessions that were so much fun. And I felt like I learned a lot about self defense, a lot about my own capabilities, just building up physical strength and feeling confident as a warrior. The fight stuff was really cool. I’ve always grown up wanting to learn a martial art, and doing the part of Mary Jabasa and learning martial arts to be able to achieve her level of physical skill, was so much fun for me.
IN CONVERSATION WITH FILMMAKERS JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer), SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography), COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer), TOM HOLKENBORG (Composer), ANDREW JACKSON (Visual Effects Supervisor), ROBERT MACKENZIE (Supervising Sound Editor), GUY NORRIS (Action Designer), PJ VOETEN (First Assistant Director)
Worth in the Wasteland:
COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer): It’s one of George’s main tenets that if something is to survive, it has to have an innate worth. And that worth can be beauty. It can be mechanical wonder; it can be structure; it can be pragmatic, as this is the best way to kill the bastard who wants to kill you. But that beauty, that ornamentalism, that finding something and treasuring it, that basically gave rise to the salvage artist team that we used on the last film—and it’s almost the same team that we put back together again, with a few additions, this time around, because we are taking salvage. It’s got to be something worth saving… and then, we are finding the art in it. We are trying to make something worth saving, because we need to give ourselves a reason for why we ought or why we deserve to be saved. And of late, that’s become harder and harder to discover, or to make us feel like we deserve it. Sometimes, it seems our greatest attribute is self-delusion, and we need to try something else. We utilized the same theory as before and a lot of the same systems, and built ourselves stockpiles of things that we thought we could use, and then tried our best to use them.
Three Fortresses of the Wasteland:
COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer): Each of the three—Citadel, Gas Town, Bullet Farm—they each needed to have a different taste, a different flavor. Obviously, the Citadel is stone, thrusting upward out of the earth, sucking from an aquifer deep below. The walls of the Throne Room, much like the rest of our Citadel, is a cave that was partially carved from the rock by the aquifer, blowing water up inside the space. And then, it was tailored by—if not just The Immortan’s sense of history and period, then whoever else had, in times past, made a home way up in this eerie place… where mankind throughout history keeps finding a way to retreat back into Mother Earth.
For Gas Town, we envisaged those scenes of Kuwait, where the derricks had been set on fire, way too many to ever be capped and stopped, so that the camels and the desert, the dust and the sand itself, are all stained with sulfur and black. Gas Town is basically the oil rigs themselves out in the middle of nowhere, still pumping, and therefore still making fuel, still making money. We hadn’t learned our lesson. We needed the fuel to continue to do battle, to continue to drive cars, to continue to buy armaments… Gas Town’s black, greasy, fractionating towers, to give us a different texture, a different part of the tapestry that was what was left of life.
A reason for the fall, for our untimely demise, is the fact that we have dragged everything out of the earth. And at the Bullet Farm, they’re still tinkering away, dragging out tin and coal and burning them to make more bullets, more death. The Bullet Farm grew out of a series of fantastic photographs from Serra Pelada, which was a goldmine in Brazil that operated from 1980 to 1986. There were thousands upon thousands of men climbing rickety wooden ladders with sacks on their back, and each received a token at the top of the hill. And Bullet Farm is that for us—it’s man as mule and basically that mule dragging itself up a hill for the right to stay alive another moment, another day. It’s basically man in extremis.
There is the stone Citadel, the steel of Gas Town, and then the mine itself, and we worked the sense of a castle by using a portcullis, an old falling gate, that was part of the medieval structure of a castle built into the original mine head, where they began the open cut mine. And that is the Bullet Farm.
The War Rigs:
COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer): Well, we have a couple of variations dictated to us by the story. The War Rig in “Fury Road” was basically The Immortan’s history coming a little towards the tail end of wonderment and, though it was a beast somewhere between hot rod and tractor, it was still a rough little beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Whereas, we first meet him now ten or more years before, and in that pre-decade, he’s at the high point of his own mythmaking and legend. And so this time around, George thought it would be good to make a shinier statement. He’s more Louis XIV, more Sun King, than the aging Napoleon that he was in “Fury Road.” So the War Rig is larger, more magnificent, more polished. And we’ve made a bas-relief story of his legend, an advertisement for him to drag through the Wasteland, proclaiming his greatness.
The vehicles:
COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer): This time round, given that Dementus is the head of a horde of mighty bikers, the Citadel, Gas Town and Bullet Farm become less mobile, apart from the final battle. And one of the main vehicles that we had to build was the Valiant, which is basically our love and revenge. And again, same system as before, though this is a Slant 6 rather than a V8. And it is jacked up and super turbo mode. Basically, it is an escape vehicle that it was always meant to be. It’s had most of the paint and Duco blown off it. But what is left is the color of heart and love… just a spattering of red.
The Cranky Black is a vehicle that’s built for war. It’s basically a vehicle that also had to suit Furiosa, though it belongs to Scrotus and his part of his war machine—about halfway through the design process, George wanted these vehicles to run up sand dunes. And so suddenly, motors that were mounted in the front were better set towards the rear and became sort of mountain climbing units. So, this is a shaved hot rod with a rear mounted turbo-aspirated V8 that becomes Furiosa’s.
The bikes/bikers:
COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer): George wanted occasionally for there to appear to be upwards of 3,000 motorbikes in this locust plague, this Mongol horde, that was wiping itself across the Wasteland. Because of that, we broke the motorbikes up into different tribal groups: who would be ready at the end of civilization, who would be available, who would be ethically bad enough to want to join this horde, to want to wreak vengeance across the Wasteland. And so the bikes themselves gave us cues to what those tribes might be. Obviously, our biker group of banditry and brotherhood who were born to the bitumen; they were a good choice. So, a lot of heavier Harleys, hogs, flatheads, et cetera, became the Bikie group. So the Militia, the preppers, the police, prison guards and the prisoners themselves—who finally find themselves on parole as the rest of the world disappears—still hang together, and they still have the bikes, the weaponry, the gear and certainly the lack of an ethical line to step over that sets them apart. Then the Mortifiers, who we basically envisaged as the descendants of an SAS [Special Air Service] group, who perhaps had escaped the last great trench warfare battle of the Eastern seaboard; they made their way (children and all) out towards the desert, striking horror into the hearts of others because they were well-known, only in rumor, to have a fondness for the flesh of their fallen comrades. And between that and a talent for parkour and parachute, the Mortifiers themselves became an integral group within Dementus’ team, led by the Octoboss. Refugees, the happy clappers who had rushed to the desert waiting for the rapture after the rupture, and there were no shortage of groups. The Roobillies—basically our inbred redneck friends, the mutations that had built over generations, which were fanned a little by the radioactive dust blowing in from the coast—also gave us a group who had both resilience and a certain nastiness. And they were more than capable of wreaking revenge and loss on anyone else left out in that drought of dust and sadness.
Dementus’ rides:
COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer): We needed Dementus to have something that set him apart from anyone else. The one way to do that was to upgrade the bike, to make it not a found object. So, his bike had to be fabricated, made from the ground up. And I had it originally that he was an Icarus fallen from the sky. And that gave us the option to take a Rotec seven-cylinder R2800—basically, a plane engine—turn it sideways, mount in-between two big wheels and fabricate a motorbike around it. It has been done before; they’ve been mounted longitudinally, horizontally. They do have rather a lot of technical problems to go with them, given that they spit oil, and they like to turn on, run for a long time and then turn off, and not “Let’s start again.” So, it’s a high maintenance object, but like some high maintenance girlfriends, it’s worth the effort. The chariot itself was born of a desire to upgrade him, and we had the idea of him coming into the Citadel to lay siege, almost like Caesar, running back into Rome. And I had originally had him with a pair of BMW R18s as these large black horses in front of the chariot; George, of course, outdid me as ever, and added the chariot, the radial [engine bike], to become the central horse of this object. Waste not want not in the Wasteland. And if two is just enough, then three is even better. And so we upgraded the chariot to both the radial in the center and the two R18s, either side.
The film’s look:
SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography): I knew “Furiosa” was going to be a much more diverse looking film. We still maintain the character of “Fury Road,” but because we are exposed to many other locations, environments and new characters, we had a much more varied looking story to tell. In “Fury Road,” the most common feel that we had to stick with was the look of the deserts and the Citadel—we saw a lot of the Citadel, but we only heard about the other locations in the story. We never visited them. All these other fortified locations are all connected, and they create a satellite around the Citadel.
Moving through the Wasteland:
SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography): The look of the Wasteland is not purely restricted to some of the desert roads that we see. The character of Dementus, he’s constantly moving through the desert, and we come across some amazing landscapes of sand dunes and other things, so that adds to the look in the desert. Plus, we also see that these are the fortified towns connected by these same desert roads. So, once we’re inside of these fortresses, it’s a whole new world—there’s a lot more interest in the materials used, which play directly into the purposes of these fortified places.
Shooting in Australia:
SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography): “Fury Road” was shot in South Africa, and they had a constant mist over the top of all of their shoots. When we started shooting in Australia, we realized that it’s much crisper, a more contrast-y look, which we actually embraced. It’s got a slightly harder feel to it, which I think works really well. And the skies are a different color, more intense. And we also had a lot of very defined clouds that you get in Broken Hill in the outback of Australia. All of that helped slightly change the look, but didn’t take it away from what had been established.
Overseeing the action:
SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography): I think the control over the action unit came a lot from the pre-vis that we were creating for it. And also, George had a satellite link, which meant we could watch in real time what the second unit or action unit was shooting. So after each take, George would give his comments, make improvements or whatever he needed to do. So, basically George was always in control of everything the action unit was doing.
Sidestepping shadows:
SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography): We would often do the physical rehearsal the night before and then shoot the next day. Once we were confident it was going to work, we’d set up the next day with the right light, because often the camera would be doing 360-degree moves. So, we had to avoid shadows as much as possible—the whole direction of the light was very important for us.
Capturing the action:
SIMON DUGGAN (Director of Photography): With a heavy visual effects film like this, where there’s so much movement, we wanted to put the actors on the vehicles, on the trucks as safely as we could manage to track with them. So, we had lots of arm car vehicles with stabilized cranes and heads that allowed us to get in very tight to the actors and tight through all the action. That was something that really helped us achieve the goal of getting the performances and making them look authentic in the real environment.
Verisimilitude:
ANDREW JACKSON (Visual Effects Supervisor): All visual effects is about finding really good reference from the real world. If that’s the style of the work that we’re doing, which is grounded in reality, then it’s all about reference. And you’ve got to find really good reference. You’ve got to match that—you’ve got to look at the real world and make sure that the work that we do feels real. That was the same on “Fury Road” and on this film… and on all the other films that I do, because that is really essentially the style of work that I do. I’m not a person who works on fantasy films, or films with monsters. I’m very much based in the real world. That’s the style of the work that I tend to do.
Then versus now:
ANDREW JACKSON (Visual Effects Supervisor): Obviously, the tools have progressed a lot and everything is just that little bit more real. I think probably one of the biggest areas for me that has changed is the effects of fire, water, dust and smoke, which used to be quite a challenge to get them to look entirely convincing. Nowadays, it’s just something we don’t even think about, matching existing objects and capturing an existing vehicle or a person. The way that we capture the images and turn them into a 3D asset is very straightforward. They look completely real. There’s no questioning that. That’s certainly come a long way. It feels like everywhere there are areas that have improved incrementally—the tools have all improved over time. And it’s been ten years, so there have been considerable improvements. There are quite a lot of scenes where we’re either replacing or augmenting vehicles. And quite a few scenes where we’ve just got the CG vehicle, because it’s just more straightforward—it does what we want it to do. The technology is so good for matching, especially if there’s a real vehicle that exists and it’s been photographed and scanned correctly, then we can make an exact replica of that. And the effects with dust, sand and particles, they’re so good. The combination of those two things is completely convincing.
Wardrobe as survival:
JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer): In the Wasteland, the guiding principles are that there is nothing, and so anything they find has to have a purpose. And George loves it if they can have two purposes. Doesn’t mean they can’t be decorative. So, you’re using stuff that’s really of not much use anymore to work with. And obviously, there’s no Wasteland supermarket. They’re going to make clothes last and last and last—they’re going to use anything they can find out there, bones, leather. In this one we’re a bit earlier, so we’ve still got the Green Place, so there was this wonderful possibility of a little area with water. You could grow things outside. Then, you go into the Wasteland, which borders it. So, it’s definitely about purpose. George’s other great mantra is, “Keep it simple,” which we do until we don’t. With a character like Rictus, it’s just fun piling it on. But actually, every single thing they’re wearing is there to keep them alive. It’s to do with breathing, because none of them can breathe because it’s so toxic. They’re all suffering from every disease. And The Immortan’s body is rotting, so he wears the carapace to protect himself. It’s not pure decoration, although it’s got a slight gladiatorial sense to it. We’re mixing metaphors all the time, but it is to do with survival.
Furiosa’s look:
JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer): Anya Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa only has a handful of looks, and once she was settled in them, she was looked after by her wonderful costumer, Fi Nichols. But she was a joy to work with—her name is absolutely correct for her. And she seemed to take to the character like a duck to water. As I’ve said before, George Miller is an auteur. It’s his vision we are putting out there. I did a collage for Furiosa and we put it on a stand to show him the work I’d done and he loved it. And Anya was very happy to wear what we came up with. I think boots we probably changed just to make her really comfortable and safe, but otherwise no. A lot of the time, I have really in-depth conversations about how the actors feel about the character and all the rest of it, but I think Furiosa’s quite prescriptive in a way. You know, she is what she is. And Anya seemed very happy to wear it; she was just lovely.
Dementus and the bear:
JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer): The whole thing of Dementus and the teddy bear… I found Dementus an incredibly hard character to get my head around. I remember researching gurus, pop culture phenomenons, flamboyant characters, dictators. They all seem to be in the realm of what this character is. And then we did a whole Zoom on the character of Dementus with Nico [Lathouris] and various others, and I still didn’t quite get it. And then I think I got into the idea of mixing the dictator and the guru, and that was a really good start. And he obviously rides a motorbike and he is a showman. And that funny little jacket thing looks like a bandleader, or could it be a hussar, or just his sort of showing off? So we put one on a guardian of Gas Town—the idea being that if you see it somewhere else, you know where he got it from. And as his power increases, he’s adding to his visual look. And it was just that one simple little garment that we added, nothing else. Obviously, we worked on the white parachute cloak. And the bear, I think, is just because he’s such a damaged character. It’s his thing from childhood. And our bears, we actually got the original bear off eBay in England and then we had multiples made by a phenomenally talented crew in Australia. And the bear became quite a big part of Chris Hemsworth’s look as Dementus.
Creativity:
JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer): I think there is still an element of creativity. George always said, “Just because it’s the Wasteland, and it’s dirty and desperate and all that, it doesn’t mean it can’t be interesting and beautiful.” Not everything, but some people always will. I mean, they’ve nothing else to do. Now, people knit and crochet and watch TV, but we thought in the Wasteland, they’d be doing something in their evenings with their clothing to give it interest and personality. That was definitely our plan.
Looks:
JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer): So Gas Town was very much based on those wonderful historical pictures in the 1920s of people covered in oil. I just looked endlessly at people in those situations, where they do get absolutely covered, head to foot, in black, greasy, viscous oil—it’s very visual. And then Bullet Farm, we decided was more yellow-y sulfur-y brown. The Bullet Farmer, brown, with judges’ wigs made out of bullets, so they had their own feel. Then, those who work the pits, they were prescribed by those looks—we didn’t have quite a uniform, but we definitely dyed, painted and did everything with those colors. The garments were as protective as they could be, but since these characters were the very poor, it was really a lot of rags.
The vision:
PJ VOETEN (First Assistant Director): George has got just an incredible brain for the detail of a film—he’s got the film in his head, normally. He’s got it projecting and all we’re ever trying to do is plug into that brain. If a machine ever existed that you could just plug in and project the film, we’d all be out of a job. But he knows exactly what he wants. And my job is to try and get everybody on the same page where he is. I found it sort of a conduit for his vision.
Broken Hill:
PJ VOETEN (First Assistant Director): When I was scheduling the film, I thought, “Well, we’ll get a start in Broken Hill,” because I think Broken Hill is a spiritual home of the franchise. I think for all the fans, everyone who’s into the Mad Max world, Broken Hill holds a special place. I remember we were doing our first testing, with a huge amount of vehicles driving down to my AD department—none of them had worked on “Fury Road”—and they were so excited. They said, “We feel like it’s a Mad Max film now,” because they were out in the desert driving wacky cars across the landscape. It was good to get that sort of DNA into performers and the crew. Plus, in terms of story beats, it was quite early in the characters’ relationship, so it ticked a few boxes creatively as well—the actors were playing their roles for the first time early on in the film and early on the schedule, which is always a good thing.
The leader:
PJ VOETEN (First Assistant Director): George doesn’t ever take a shortcut. He just sets the bar, and he’s the one that just keeps challenging us. By the end of the show, we will have used every minute possible and we’ll all just rush over the finish line, totally spent. Because George is the sort of person that you want to do your best; he inspires you to do your best work. It’s all about the project. And he leads from the front—and he will always want it to be exactly right. And he’s right, because he’s the one in the edit room at the end. Sometimes, I find myself saying, “You’re never going to use this, George,” but he wants to have that choice in the edit room. He may or may not use it, but he still has the right to have the choice to shoot scenes that he may not end up wanting. But in the end, people turn around and say, “Yeah, it’s the best work I’ve done.”
Two wheels versus four:
GUY NORRIS (Action Designer): With the last film and with this one, it all starts off exactly the same. It’s got to be based on story, on character, and how George wants to tell the story. The scope here is just much larger, because not only are we trying to do different stunts over so many different types of places, we’re also trying to use the latest technology to help us achieve those stories. “Fury Road” was very much a mechanical trucks, cars, sort of storytelling. In this we’ve got motorbikes, which are different and way more difficult to choreograph… and also, way more dangerous trying to do stunts. Dementus really is a biker and essentially, he has a horde of over 3,000 bikers that he basically bands together over the course of the film. So, all of the kinetic action that we were doing in “Fury Road,” we’re doing the exact same thing here, but we’re doing a lot of it on two wheels as opposed to four wheels. And that makes it a much more difficult way to try and get the action across.
For safety:
GUY NORRIS (Action Designer): When we came to designing the action on “Furiosa,” and how we could do that in a safe way, we really started leaning into the technology of motion capture. What we developed is a system of using inertia and motion capture suits and combining that with the same level of rigging that we were doing on “Fury Road,” and then putting it together. The action in “Furiosa” is the same type as in “Fury Road.” It’s all driven by the physical motion and movement of all the performers. But what we were able to do was combine high-end motorcycle crashes with rigging and motion capture. Essentially, every performance and every stunt is still driven by a human. Now, what we do is the crashes are performed while they’re actually wearing motion capture suits and we collect the data—everybody has their own avatar as the character. Then we overlay the data of the physical motion onto their own character. So, we get a stunt performer going down the road at 50, 70-miles-an-hour and crashing a motorcycle, tumbling multiple times… and is unscathed. That’s a big difference.
For reality:
GUY NORRIS (Action Designer): I think one of the big draws for all of the Mad Max films has been that all live action is kinetic. So what you’re seeing in this world is what happens when real bodies do real body things—whether they’re falling off a tanker, getting crushed inside cars, leaping from one vehicle to another. Nothing that you see is a hand animated, digital character. Everything that we did in “Furiosa” is all driven by the motion of real stunt people doing real stunts. We’ve just taken the level of safety to a degree that, rather than tumbling down the road at 70-miles-an-hour executing a motorcycle crash, we’re getting the same results using a very elaborate rigging system that’s usually between two cranes. Or, it can be inside of a very large stage, and then we’re basically taking the motion that the stunt performers are doing and we’re capturing it, and that capture gives us the performance exactly as it would be in an event that the performer would be doing at a high speed on a road or motorcycle track.
Scene 102:
GUY NORRIS (Action Designer): The Stowaway to Nowhere is one of our major action sequences inside the film; it’s where our lead character Furiosa first meets Praetorian Jack. Stowaway is scene 102. It basically goes for 15 minutes and there are 197 shots in it. And we shot that, off and on, for close to nine months, starting in country, New South Wales in March, winding up in Sydney, on a stage at Fox Studios in October. We shot it over the course of that time in-between other sequences as well. It’s a big sequence.
Advancing past pre-vis:
GUY NORRIS (Action Designer): [Proxy system] Toybox, a real-time render engine, gave us incredible freedom to try and plan whatever we wanted to do. In the past, the only way you’ve ever been able to try and share a story making idea with someone else was the storyboard. That’s where it all came from. Then, the storyboards became involved, an animated picture of that event. They’ve all been a great process. Then it became pre-visualization, where those storyboards became animated. And that’s been a process that everyone’s used and still uses today. The only problem with something like a storyboard is everybody will look at it a different way and get something different out of it. And really, a storyboard is a frozen moment in time. You can call it one frame, and there are 24 frames to every second. And so it’s really what comes before that frame, what goes after it, how does that work in the pacing or flow of storytelling? It’s not hard to imagine the advantage of being able to do our work, our design process, with George inside of the engine, while we’re designing what I like to call a stage play.
We design the action as a singular piece first. As we’re designing it, it’s about: does it work for the story, are the actors or the characters doing what they should be doing in the storytelling process at that point? And once that’s designed as a full event, then we decide how to cover it. Now, we’re able to actually watch the Stowaway sequence, for example, from an omnipresent God view camera, if you like. And we can just hit “go” and watch 15 minutes of this action sequence that covers 20 miles along a highway, all in one, unedited take.
Once the story is down, we use that as a story making tool with George, and we explore the characters and the interaction between them all the way through it. When that’s done as one big, long event—like a stage play, or a football play—then the decision becomes how we cover that to tell the story and get it across the way George would like it done. This was a major development and the major new piece of technology that was used all the way through “Furiosa.” I really think it’s a major paradigm shift in storytelling. It’s, How do you get across your story? How do you explore things in a really safe environment? How do you do it all first? Everything we do inside of the proxy Toybox system is governed by the real world—you can only put a camera where you can put a real camera; it has to be based on the speed that you can actually achieve in the vehicles; it has to be based on the real physics of these stunts. We’re incredibly fortunate that now we’re able to do it all in an entirely digital 3D environment to work out all of the ideas we want. I think it’s a totally different way of storytelling.
Approaching the score:
TOM HOLKENBORG (Composer): I worked on “Fury Road” with George, and the whole process actually took almost two years. It was quite a process and we actually became really good friends in the years after that. Working on “Furiosa” is not actually what I would consider a normal film score type job, because for years we’ve been talking about this project, how different this movie would be and what the music equivalent of that would be. I would say the majority of the work was actually the conversations that we had together. And we both have a very interesting philosophy about how we work together—and that is sometimes, we have conversations over a few hours in which we do not discuss the movie at all. We discuss completely different subjects. We find this a really creative and a very inspiring way of working together, communicating with each other.
The approach to both the movie and the music has been restrained. “Fury Road” was super big, bombastic and very aggressive, musically speaking, with multiple layers of music, almost from the beginning of the movie, all the way up to the end. And “Furiosa” is exactly reversed. The music is pursued in a really elemental way. What are the bare elements that we need for a certain scene? How long can we go without it before music comes in? Where the role of music is the same as in “Fury Road,” it’s the second narrator of the story, it’s done in a very different way and with more restraint.
Music or no?:
TOM HOLKENBORG (Composer): At no point was it my intent to look at this film and basically do a “Fury Road” score, number two. And so, in all the conversations that we had together, where restraint was a very key point, we looked at not only the storytelling and the development of the characters, but also how music could help tell the narrative of this whole story in the most effective way that would elevate the film. It was never about plastering music everywhere left and right just because you’re technically afraid not to have music. This movie is so particularly strong that it works so well without music—with music, it enhances the movie. I had a great relationship with the supervising sound editor, Rob Mackenzie. We’re both so focused on sound, what sound does and the way that music and sound design interact. We came up with all these ideas to present to George, like how something could work as a perfect tandem to underscore the movie in the right way with restraint, but with a really strong narrative when it needed to be.
A unique score:
TOM HOLKENBORG (Composer): The intention of “Fury Road” was to create sounds and music from objects that were repurposed to then make different sounds. So, string instruments were used as percussion. Metal sounds were stretched with software until a musical note came out of them. On this particular film, that concept is still there, but a few things have been added to this score that make it quite unique.
First off, a few organic instruments really take center place in the score. One is the duduk [Armenian double reed woodwind instrument], which is heard when there’s talk about the Green Place, so it has an important role in this score. It has this really soaring, soft, incredible tone that immediately draws you in, like the deepest felt emotions. The master players can evoke so much emotion from this one instrument, without accompaniment. The second one is a didgeridoo [Aboriginal Australian wind instrument], which is very important on certain sections in the score, because it is really such an Australian sound, and it’s so clear that this movie takes place in Australia. Together, the duduk and the didgeridoo are both responsible for holding that feeling of home—the Green Place, the place where Furiosa used to live. And once her journey starts away from that, she is reminded of the promise that she made to her mother to return by these sounds. But as the movie progresses, she moves further and further away from the Green Place and her ability to fulfill her promise. The duduk and didgeridoo grow more faint, gain more reverb and start to disappear.
The other sounds we created with a synthesizer system that’s called Buchla. Compared to a Moog, it has a completely different way of approaching sounds and its language is completely different. I took the plunge and got one for myself a few years ago, and you have to wait for the system, because they are made to order. But once I mastered the system, I discussed it with George. I said, “This thing has such a unique sound and such a unique way of creating the most bizarre pulses, rhythms, soundscapes, whatever you want. It’s even capable of doing the most extreme treatment on traditional audio that you record, like a string orchestra or, in this film, a didgeridoo and a duduk. And it gives me the opportunity to do really experimental things with them.” This instrument became really the backbone for the score.
And mostly what I did with the system is create very aggressive sounds for Furiosa. We hear this aggressive sound on the movie title when the movie starts. I really wanted people to react, like, “What is going to happen that justifies that sound on her name?” I also used the system to create Furiosa’s theme, which is essentially a simple pulse that repeats. It also changes in character and in speed. When she’s fearful in a particular situation, like her being stolen as a young girl, it has flutters in it that interrupt the rhythm and then it starts again, almost like heart palpitations. When she feels at ease, the pulse becomes slow and steady. During certain action moments, the pulses speed up with erratic rhythm, to underscore the unpredictability of what might happen. The music really needed to reflect all that without getting in the way of the sound effects or the dialog. So I felt, together with George, that it was actually about making the theme as simple as it could be. Just a synth pulse, no melody, no harmony. Just a simple pulse, and it works so effectively in the film. And it’s really all of those things that combine to give this score a very, very unique quality.
The process:
ROBERT MACKENZIE (Supervising Sound Editor): George is very specific and we start by having a lot of conversations. It’s in the specificity of the direction that we find the overall feeling of the soundtrack. And with George, it’s a process of exploration, too, and experimentation. I’ll do one thing and he can react to that, and that will spawn another idea as well. It’s a constant exploration of storytelling. But also, in the script, George has some very specific sound notes, and they are there to use sound as yet another way to tell the story.
Singularity of sound:
ROBERT MACKENZIE (Supervising Sound Editor): In the Wasteland, it’s all found and built. So all of the vehicles, for instance, in the film need to have that quality that they were put together from bits and pieces, certainly not off-the-factory-floor sounding vehicles. They’re all custom built. They all have that quality. They don’t run on normal fuel. So certainly, the vehicles in the film take on that Wasteland quality. The vehicles in the Mad Max movies are definitely a reflection of the characters that drive them. And a lot of that is from the work of Colin Gibson originally—the way the vehicles are tuned and built on set is extraordinary. And just listening to them, they’re not muffled down. They’re not set pieces; they’re real vehicles that make these real noises.
For all of them, we’ve got a fantastic jumping off point, which is actually the sound that they’re making on the day. And then George gives us direction on if they need to be modified and if so, in what way? There was a lot of re-recording of the motorcycles, for instance, in order to get that contrast between the broken bikes and the thunderous bikes. And it was exciting getting a hold of the big monster trucks and recording them. The War Rig has two engines—the main engine, and the turbo-boosted second engine—and we recorded both. And sometimes, we would take the real sound of the vehicle and then inject a little bit of non-diegetic sound into that. An animal sound, bits of thunder, or whatever other sounds we can think of. Other elements that would go into that would be synthesizers, to give an enhanced bottom end; animal growls, to get that immediate built-in reactions that humans have to the sound of lions and tigers. We mixed those into the War Rig.
Sound of sand:
ROBERT MACKENZIE (Supervising Sound Editor): There were many environmental conditions that we needed to represent in the Wasteland, particularly sandstorm. We went into a warehouse and recorded sand hitting various objects. We started by blasting sand through a sand blaster, then we moved onto things like quinoa, rice, coffee grounds, heavier granular material, and sprayed that against metal objects, glass and things like that. The sound of the sandstorm—sand hitting the windscreen, the bonnet, the sides of the vehicles—was built from that.
The sound of green:
ROBERT MACKENZIE (Supervising Sound Editor): Bees are very important in “Furiosa.” The film opens with Furiosa in a peach tree surrounded by bees. And then I took those bees and affected them, sort of twisted them, so they take on Furiosa’s feelings. I’m taking a diegetic sound of the bees and then turning it into a non-diegetic sound, which is what Furiosa’s feeling. It’s the emotional context of the sound. And that sound then becomes a motif throughout the film as her character develops. One of the rules for the Wasteland visually is it must be a found object and then it must be able to be repurposed as well. And I guess that’s our sonic equivalent. We have a real sound, but we also repurpose that to be an emotive sound—a reflection on what’s happening in the scene, the emotion of the scene.
Capturing dialogue:
ROBERT MACKENZIE (Supervising Sound Editor): There is a lot of dialogue in “Furiosa,” and we used a lot of the on set recordings; we didn’t replace it with ADR. We retained a lot of the original. George worked very closely with a dialogue supervisor, to make sure every line was pitched perfectly. In the edit, George and the supervisor would take dialogue from other takes and insert that into the final performance seen on the screen. What you will wind up hearing is on set sound, but it could be a combination of different takes.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION / BY THE NUMBERS
FILMING
Main Unit principal photography for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” began on May 30, 2022; Second/Action Unit had begun filming weeks earlier, on April 8. When filming wrapped on November 3, combined total shoot days for both Units numbered 240 (131 Second/Action Unit, 109 Main Unit).
Production shot 156 days on location and 84 days in studio. Australian locations included: Terrey Hills, Hay, Kurnell and the inland mining city of Broken Hill, which instantly evokes the “look” of the Mad Max Wasteland (having served as a primary location for “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior”).
Shooting “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” required an unprecedented level of collaboration between Panavision, ARRI and RED, the three biggest camera facilitating companies of the filmmaking world, as well as cooperation from many other companies from Australia and around the world. The camera package was built around the ARRI Alexa 65 system, but also included ARRI Alexa LF, RED V-Raptor, RED Komodo and GoPro cameras.
Main Unit Director of Photography Simon Duggan and Second Unit DOP Peter McCaffrey worked together for an extensive period of time prior to pre-production to bring these companies together to collaborate on the film; logistics discussions began during pre-production on “Three Thousand Years of Longing” in 2020. The level of cooperation that was achieved was essential to facilitate the complex camera requirements to realize George Miller’s vision.
The camera department included 35 full-time camera technicians across both Units; they utilized 10 camera trucks, eight utility vehicles, two vans and two DIT buses to accommodate and travel the camera packages.
ARRI crafted two lenses especially for the film. They were 25mm DNA Primes, the widest lens available in that range for the ARRI Alexa 65 system. They were marked serial numbers #1 and #2, and engraved with “Mad Max” and “Furiosa.”
Prepping for the Stowaway sequence started at the end of 2021, when the crew began lensing shots for the set piece with action designer Guy Norris using a RED Komodo and Norris’ Toybox VFX previs system in and around the War Rig at the KMM-built Melrose Park facility. Rehearsal and testing for stunt sequences began in January 2022. In February, prepping the camera package began at Panavision Sydney, with the package ready for transport to Hay by March.
Second Unit began the shoot with the Stowaway to Nowhere action sequence. This involved cameras mounted to vehicles continuously traveling up and down a four-kilometer stretch of straight road. The set was in the remote rural New South Wales town of Hay—unfortunately without reliable phone service. At the time, Miller was at Cannes presenting “Three Thousand Years of Longing”; however, he was able to speak with Guy Norris via satellite phone and also view footage live from set via satellite transmission. The director would view a take and make adjustments in real-time, while the convoy of vehicles was resetting back at the top of the sequence… to then begin the scene again without stopping.
Many of the traveling shots were filmed using an Edge arm vehicle (a stabilized camera system mounted to a crane on top of the car). Each morning, the Edge team would drive to Norris’ trailer and swing the camera in through his window to show him they were ready to go—and then transport him to set.
HUMANS
Nearly 200 extras were used in a riot sequence that takes place at Gas Town, as well as a sequence set at the Citadel once it comes under Dementus’ rule. A Bullet Farm sequence with Furiosa and Praetorian Jack trading resources employed 149 extras; 100 extras populated another Citadel sequence, when Furiosa returns; and 92 were utilized in the Citadel Garage, when Furiosa sees Praetorian Jack for the first time.
The stunt department employed nearly 200 performers to execute the minutely-orchestrated onscreen mayhem. Stowaway to Nowhere took 78 days over nine months to capture the 197 shots in the set piece. There are 52 unique stunt characters in Stowaway.
There were 13 major stunt sequences overseen by action designer Guy Norris, stunt coordinator Tim Wong and five sequence coordinators. The logistics and day-to-day running of the stunt department were managed by 11 people (seven in Action Unit, four in Main Unit).
Another action set piece—a battle that takes place at the Citadel—called for 41 stunt riders on motorbikes in one scene. And still another sequence at Gas Town utilized 57 stunt personnel in costume in one day.
An army of makeup artisans under hair and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt were assembled to give all of the onscreen performers their Wasteland looks. Main makeup/hair team boasted 16 people, with 13 additional artists on the SFX team, eight on Second/Action Unit, six personal and six running the crowd room. On the largest days of filming, 40 additional crew were brought aboard.
HMU were charged with designing 105 specific characters—on their largest day, they dealt with 280 extras and 61 stunties.
VEHICLES
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” employed a total of 145 vehicles, which included 35 hero picture vehicles (including the two War Rigs, Dementus’ Six Foot, Furiosa’s Cranky Black and Furiosa / Praetorian Jack’s Valiant) and 110 hero picture bikes (among them, Dementus’ chariot and a multitude of motorcycles powered by his sergeants and other denizens of the Wasteland).
In “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” per George Miller, “the vehicles represent the characters.”
The War Rig (driven by Praetorian Jack)
• Refashioned from a 900 series Kenworth heavy-duty cab truck, it is skinned in shiny stainless steel and chrome, and decorated in a bas-relief story of the legend of The Immortan Joe. It’s larger, more magnificent, more polished than the War Rig of the later Immortan Joe, as seen in “Fury Road.”
o Horsepower: 460 kW (kilowatts) @ 1,800 RPM (revolutions per minute)
o Torque: 2,780 Nm (newton-meters) @ 1,200 RPM
Dementus’ Chariot
• The central bike is fabricated around a Rotec seven-cylinder R2800 plane engine turned sideways.
o Horsepower: 89 kW @ 2,450 RPM
o Torque: 217 Nm @ 1,200 RPM
• The “horses” on either side are a pair of BMW R18s.
o Horsepower: 59 kW @ 4,500 RPM
o Torque: 148 Nm @ 3,000 RPM
The Valiant (driven by Furiosa and Praetorian Jack)
• This was the vehicle that Anya Taylor-Joy first trained in. It’s the car Furiosa shares with Praetorian Jack.
• Powered by a Slant 6 engine and, per production designer Colin Gibson, it’s “jacked up and super turbo mode.”
o Horsepower: 108 kW @ 4,000 RPM
o Torque: 291 Nm @ 2,400 RPM
The Six Foot (driven by Dementus)
• As Dementus grows in power and has greater access to fuel and manpower, he graduates to a six-wheeled “angry monster truck” crossed with a tow truck. It’s outfitted with a lazy axle system that allows the vehicle, when carrying a load, to off-road pretty much anywhere the driver wants.
• It’s powered by a 454 Chevrolet big block engine that gives Dementus the power to winch up and drag away anything he comes across in the Wasteland.
o Horsepower: 750 kW @ 6,500 RPM
o Torque: 1,356 Nm @ 5,000 RPM
Cranky Black (driven by Furiosa)
• Furiosa takes this vehicle from one of Immortan Joe’s sons.
• Halfway through the design process, Miller requested that Cranky Black be able to run up sand dunes, so the previously front-mounted engine was shifted to the rear.
• Cranky Black is a shaved hot rod with a rear mounted turbo-aspirated V8.
o Horsepower: 171 kW @ 5,200 RPM
o Torque: 375 Nm @ 3,000 RPM
NUMBERS
37°C/98.6F: Temperature on the hottest day of filming (on location in Hay)
32: Cameras utilized across both Units (with six different types requiring special support rigs for each)
41: Stunt doubles used on the film
37: Different lenses carried by the camera department
87: Number of wigs made, re-used or hired
4: Stunt doubles for Furiosa
3: Full-time precision drivers with the camera department
5,500: Sheets of tattoo paper used for the creation of performers’ tattoos
4: Countries represented by the stunt performers (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA)
120: Liters of clay used to make up the War Boys
83: Age of the oldest stunt performer
18: Age of the youngest stunt performer
60: Liters of makeup dirt used to make up the Wretched
26: Most stunt War Boys needed in one day
35: Sets of teeth made for cast
ABOUT THE CAST
ANYA TAYLOR-JOY (Furiosa) burst onto the scene with her performance in A24’s “The VVitch,” which won her rave reviews when it premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. In his debut feature, writer/director Robert Eggers tells the story of a pilgrim family that is besieged by a supernatural force. She went on to win the Breakthrough Actor Award at The Gotham Awards and Best Female Newcomer Award at The Empires for her performance.
Taylor-Joy captivated audiences globally in Netflix’s Emmy award-winning series, “The Queen’s Gambit.” Based on Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel of the same name, the show is Netflix’s biggest limited scripted series to date and was streamed by a record-setting 62 million households in its first 28 days. For her portrayal of Beth Harmon, she won the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice and Screen Actors Guild awards and was nominated for an Emmy award.
Taylor-Joy most recently voiced Princess Peach in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which grossed $1.36 billion worldwide and broke multiple box office records, including the biggest worldwide opening weekend for an animated film and the highest-grossing film based on a video game. Her performance in Searchlight Picture’s “The Menu” earned her a Golden Globe nomination in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. She can next be seen in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” the much-anticipated return to the iconic dystopian world George Miller created and the origin story of the powerhouse character from Miller’s multi-Oscar winning blockbuster “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which is set to premiere in May 2024. She will also be starring in Apple’s upcoming film “The Gorge,” alongside Miles Teller.
Her extensive filmography includes Autumn de Wilde’s “Emma,” for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe; BAFTA-nominated “Last Night in Soho”; David O’Russell’s “Amsterdam”; “Split” and “Glass,” the second and final installments in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” trilogy; Focus Features’ critically acclaimed “Thoroughbreds”; the animated musical adventure comedy film, “Playmobil: The Movie,” for StudioCanal; Universal’s “Marrowbone”; FOX’s “Morgan”; Marvel’s “The New Mutants”; and Amazon’s “Radioactive.” She’s most recently known for her chilling performance in Robert Eggers’ “The Northman.”
On television, Taylor-Joy starred in the BBC/PBS Masterpiece miniseries “The Miniaturist,” voiced the character of Brea in Netflix’s critically acclaimed fantasy series, “The Dark Crystal,” and starred in the fifth season of the gangster period epic, “Peaky Blinders.”
CHRIS HEMSWORTH (Dementus) is one of the most popular and sought-after actors in Hollywood.
After his massive success in the Marvel Universe franchise, Hemsworth teamed up with the Russo Brothers yet again for the Netflix original film ”Extraction,” making history for the streaming service. Bringing in 99 million viewers within the first four weeks alone, the film became the most watched original movie the streaming service has ever seen. Of the six Marvel and Global Avengers franchise films Hemsworth has starred in, “Avengers: Endgame” still remains one of the highest grossing movies of all time, accumulating over 2.7 billion dollars worldwide. Introduced as Thor in the 2011 eponymously named film, directed by Kenneth Branagh, Hemsworth continued his legacy in “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Thor: Love and Thunder” with director Taika Waititi—and the later film starring alongside an incredible cast, including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Melissa McCarthy, Chris Pratt, Russell Crowe and Matt Damon.
Most recently, Hemsworth was seen reprising his role as mercenary Tyler Rake in “Extraction 2.” The film was directed by Sam Hargrave and produced by Hemsworth’s multiplatform new production company, Wild State, which he launched last year with producing partner Ben Grayson. Last year he teamed up with Darren Aronofsky for the Disney+ Original series from National Geographic, “Limitless with Chris Hemsworth.” Serving as both producer and star, the series tested Hemsworth’s ability to push the limits of the human body, exploring the latest scientific research into health longevity. The six-episode series was also part of Hemsworth’s first look deal through Wild State. Hemsworth can next be seen in George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” alongside Anya Taylor-Joy.
As a respected figure in the health and fitness realm, Hemsworth launched CENTR, a personalized digital health and fitness program in February 2019. The app brings the best hand-picked team of internationally renowned experts, including elite trainers, celebrity chefs, meditation teachers and well-being mentors to help users achieve their ultimate fitness goals.
Born and raised in Australia, where he began his acting career, Hemsworth made his U.S. feature film debut in J.J. Abrams’ blockbuster “Star Trek,” playing the pivotal role of George Kirk.
Hemsworth’s multifaceted career includes lead roles in Joseph Kosinski’s “Spiderhead,” an adaptation of the George Saunders short story, which also stars Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett; “Snow White and the Huntsman,” opposite Charlize Theron, and the prequel, “Huntsman: Winter’s War,” which included Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt; and in Sony’s “Men in Black: International,” alongside Tessa Thompson.
Hemsworth flexed his comedic muscles in Paul Feig’s “Ghostbusters,” alongside Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones, and in “Vacation,” with Ed Helms, Christina Applegate and Leslie Mann. He starred in Ron Howard’s true-life drama “Rush,” portraying famed Formula One driver James Hunt, and collaborated with him again on the drama “In the Heart of the Sea.” He also had starring roles alongside Michael Shannon and Michael Peña in “12 Strong,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, which tells the story of the first Special Forces team deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11; and in Drew Goddard’s “Bad Times at the El Royale,” with Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm and Dakota Johnson.
An active philanthropist, Hemsworth supports the Australian Childhood Foundation and is passionate about ocean conservation.
TOM BURKE (Praetorian Jack) joins Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth in George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” the origin story to the iconic character from Miller’s acclaimed “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Recently it was announced that Burke will star in “Black Bag,” Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller opposite Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender.
Burke was seen in the highly anticipated second series of Sky Original, “The Lazarus Project,” a riveting, propulsive and action-packed eight-part series; “The Lazarus Project” is a timely and affecting exploration of the desire to take charge of your own fate.
In 2022, Tom appeared opposite Florence Pugh in a psychological thriller “The Wonder,” an adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel of the same name, which was nominated for the BAFTA Film Award for Outstanding British Film of the Year. Set in the late 1850s, “The Wonder” follows the story of an English nurse (Pugh), who travels to a tiny village in Ireland to observe what some view as a medical anomaly and others consider a miracle: a young girl who has survived without food for months.
Last year, Tom was seen in “Living,” starring Bill Nighy, which received two Academy Award nominations. Directed by Oliver Hermanus (BAFTA and BIFA nominated “Moffie”) and produced by Stephen Woolley of Number 9 Films, “Living” centers around a man who has worked the same monotonous job at city hall for 30 years, who then decides he can make one last change before he slips away from the world.
Tom also starred as the lead in the “C.B. Strike” series, a BBC TV series adaptation of the crime novel series written by J. K. Rowling (under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith), in which he played the titular character, Cormoran Strike. It was recently announced production has begun on series six of the series, with Tom reprising his role.
Tom played Orson Welles in Netflix’s acclaimed drama “Mank,” which depicts the development of the revolutionary film “Citizen Kane” and the battles between its screenwriter, Herman J. Mankiewicz, and director Orson Welles.
Tom appeared in the highly regarded “The Souvenir,” alongside Tilda Swinton and Richard Ayoade. Written and directed by Joanna Hogg, “The Souvenir” premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, receiving critical acclaim, and went on to win the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize. The film centres around the relationship between Tom’s complex character, Anthony, and Julie, an ambitious film student experiencing her first love affair, played by Honor Swinton Byrne. Tom was praised as “[giving] a career-best performance that is brilliantly enigmatic, a mesmerising blend of predation and vulnerability” (The Guardian, Mark Kermode).
Tom also played the idealistic John Rosmer in Duncan Macmillan’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic “Rosmersholm,” a play examining a country in political flux. Co-starring alongside Hayley Atwell and under the direction of Ian Rickson, “Rosmersholm”’s return to the West End was enthusiastically received.
ALYLA BROWNE (Young Furiosa) was born in Sydney on November 4, 2009. She and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was just a few weeks old. Her interest in acting was piqued by watching her sisters take regular acting lessons at the esteemed Beverly Hills Playhouse.
After returning to Sydney in 2015, her acting career took off. In 2021, Browne played Nicole Kidman’s daughter in “Nine Perfect Strangers,” and the younger version of lead actor BeBe Bettencourt in “Eden.” Alyla also appeared in the acclaimed television series “Mr Inbetween,” directed by Nash Edgerton. Alyla appeared in the remake of the classic film “Children of the Corn,” directed by Kurt Wimmer. In 2022, she played a young Tilda Swinton in George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and the young version of Jessica Watson in the feature film “True Spirit.”
In the recently released Amazon series “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart,” she plays Young Alice, alongside Sigourney Weaver, Asher Keddie and Alycia Debnam-Carey. Alyla is playing Furiosa in George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”; she and Anya Taylor-Joy share the iconic role memorialized in Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with Alyla playing the younger version of the character in the first part of the film. She also recently wrapped filming “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” where she stars alongside James Marsden, Jim Carrey and Idris Elba. Alyla will next be seen playing the lead role of Charlotte in the thriller feature film “Sting,” alongside Ryan Corr.
Born in Newcastle, a small city on the coast of New South Wales, Australia, model, actress and activist CHARLEE FRASER (Mary Jabasa) knew little of the fashion industry when she was suddenly thrust into the global fashion scene. After being scouted at the age of 18, Charlee quickly joined IMG and became a rising star in Australia, before a breakout season at the Fall/Winter 2016 shows that cemented her place as an international star.
Fraser’s ‘star is born’ moment came when the iconic hairstylist Guido Palau chopped her long tresses into a chic bob right before she hit the Alexander Wang runway at New York Fashion Week. Charlee was immediately dubbed the “new face to know” by American Vogue and caught the eye of top casting directors. That season she walked 40 shows, including Prada, Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Givenchy and Celine. A proud Awabakal woman, Charlee’s success doubled as a historic moment in fashion—she was the first Indigenous Australian model to work with the international fashion houses.
Charlee went on to front campaigns for Tom Ford, Celine, Stella McCartney, Givenchy, and Giorgio Armani (among many others), being photographed by the likes of Mario Sorrenti, Mert & Marcus and Juergen Teller. Her editorial career skyrocketed both locally and abroad, including multiple covers for the Australian and international editions of Vogue and Harper’s BAZAAR, and shoots for Dazed, W, Numero, T Magazine, American Vogue, and more. Charlee was only the third Indigenous model to appear on the cover of Australian Vogue in the titles’ 56-year history and made history again when she starred in the magazine’s iconic May 2022 all-Indigenous cover, alongside Elaine George, Magnolia Maymuru and Cindy Rostron.
In 2020, Charlee moved from New York City back to Australia, where she became the ambassador for First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD), a not-for-profit organization that aims to build an ecology of Indigenous artists and talent within the fashion industry. In December of 2020, she helped lead and produce the ‘Walking in Two Worlds’ program, in which she mentored up-and-coming Indigenous models from community, and in 2022 she accepted a role on FNFD’s board of directors. Charlee also founded the sustainability campaign NOT JUST TRENDING, unveiling the project at Australian Fashion Week in 2021. Defined by her passion for ethically sourced and produced fashion and beauty, Charlee parlayed the success of NOT JUST TRENDING into a much-downloaded sustainability guide.
In 2023, Charlee turned her eye toward acting for the first time, quickly winning significant roles in two major film productions. The first, in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” due for release in May 2024. The second, Sony’s romantic comedy “Anyone But You,” which was released in cinemas 26 December 2023.
Charlee is also co-founder of Clearly Music, Arts & Wellness Festival, a unique annual event focusing on wellness, community and inclusion held in Kiama, New South Wales. Charlee’s focus will be strategizing and implementing sustainable practices within the festival, overseeing every element of the event’s planning to push all sectors to adopt the most sustainable options available. The inaugural Clearly Festival was held on November 11, 2023, and featured acts including Xavier Rudd, Skegss and Gretta Ray. The two-day festival delivered a range of opportunities for the next generation of creatives and artists.
With a singular look, a passion for advocating for her community and a creative energy that spans from fashion to film, Charlee is a unique force in both Australia and internationally. Her star will only continue to rise.
Born in Melbourne, LACHY HULME (Rizzdale Pell / Immortan Joe) is widely regarded as one of Australia’s “most powerful, versatile and transformative actors,” winning both the Silver Logie Award for Best Actor and the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a TV Drama for his portrayal of volatile real-life media baron Sir Frank Packer in “Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story” (2013). Hulme was previously nominated for both awards for portraying Sir Frank’s mercurial son Kerry Packer in “Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War” (2012) — a show which remains the most-watched two-part mini-series in Australian television history.
Lachy began his career in TheatreSports before being cast as Bernie Litko in David Mamet’s searing comedy “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” for two independent theatrical runs (1990/1991). This was followed by turns in “Bonfire Downside” (1992) and “Rinaldo 441” (1992)—both written by the then-21-year-old Hulme—leading to a stint writing for TV comedy favorite “Acropolis Now” (1992) and as screenwriter of the Canadian crime thriller “Men With Guns” (1997), starring Paul Sorvino and Donal Logue.
Back in Australia, Lachy appeared in the independent feature “Four Jacks” before starring in the ‘based on a true story’ adventure-comedy “Let’s Get Skase” (2001), which he also co-wrote. This led to a series of diverse movie roles including: “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003) and video game spin- off “Enter The Matrix” (2003); “The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course” (2003); “BoyTown” and “BoyTown Confidential” (2006); “Macbeth” (as ‘Macduff’) (2006); “Killer Elite” (with Robert De Niro) (2011), “Scumbus” (2012); “Any Questions for Ben?” (2012); “The Little Death” (2014); “Three Thousand Years of Longing” (2022); and others.
In 2008, Lachy was cast in TVs “The Hollowmen” (2008), the dead-on political satire from Working Dog Productions, creators of “Frontline” (1994-1997), “The Castle” (1997) and “The Dish” (2000). The role of quick-thinking Canberra spin doctor David “Murph” Murphy would change the course of Lachy’s career, leading to roles in a slew of television productions now regarded as the New Golden Age of Aussie TV, with every show either winning or being nominated for multiple industry awards, including “The Hollowmen” and: “Rush” (2009); “Chandon Pictures” (2009); “Offspring” (as Dr. Martin Clegg, Ph.D.) (2010-2017); “Beaconsfield” (as Todd Russell) (2012); “Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War” (2012); “Jack Irish: Black Tide” (2012); “Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story” (2013); “It’s a Date” (2014); “Gallipoli” (as Lord Kitchener) (2015); “The Secret River” (as Thomas Blackwood) (2015); and STAN’s sequel to “Romper Stomper” (2018).
Of these, Lachy was nominated for multiple awards, including: the Silver Logie for Most Popular Actor for “Offspring,” “Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War” and “Beaconsfield” (all 2012); the AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actor in a TV Drama for “The Secret River”; and the Logie Award for Best Actor for “Romper Stomper” (2018).
Lachy’s other television credits include: “Blue Heelers” (1998); “Stingers” (1999); “White Collar Blue” (2002); “The Librarians” (2010); “The Ex PM” (2015) (as Lachy Hulme/Himself); “Sandy Roberts Presents: The Wordsmith” (2015) (co-written and directed with Guy Sawrey-Cookson); and AMC’s “Preacher” (2019) (as Frankie Toscani).
During this period, Lachy returned to the theater as Kjell Bjarne in “Elling” by Simon Bent, directed by Pamela Rabe (2009/Sydney Theatre Company); as Professor Calvin Schuller in “The Speechmaker” by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch, directed by Sam Strong (2014/Melbourne Theatre Company); and as Charlie Fox in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow,” directed by Andrew Upton (2016/Sydney Theatre Company).
Lachy Hulme is a passionate supporter of the Essendon Football Club.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
A native of Australia, GEORGE MILLER (Director, Writer, Producer) began his professional life as a doctor and detoured into filmmaking as a writer, director and producer. Miller made his feature film directorial debut with the international success “Mad Max,” which he also co-wrote. The film spawned three successful sequels: “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior,” “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which brought his iconic post-apocalyptic title character back to the big screen and introduced the world to Furiosa. The film grossed more than $380 million worldwide and garnered six Academy Awards.
Miller also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, among numerous other accolades, for the smash hit “Happy Feet”. A five-time Oscar nominee, Miller garnered nominations for Best Picture and Best Directing for “Mad Max: Fury Road”; Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for his work as a producer and writer on the breakout hit “Babe”; and received his first nomination for Best Original Screenplay for the moving drama “Lorenzo’s Oil.” Additional film credits include “Happy Feet Two,” “Babe: Pig in the City,” “The Witches of Eastwick” and most recently, “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, among many others.
Miller serves as a Patron of the Sydney Film Festival and the Australian Film Institute. He served as President of the 69th Cannes Film Festival in 2016. In 1996 he was awarded the Order of Australia for distinguished service to Australian cinema and, in 2009, he was honored with the French Order of Arts and Letters.
On the small screen, Miller directed and executive produced the television miniseries “The Dismissal,” which broke all rating records in Australia, and he also produced the television projects “Bodyline,” “The Cowra Breakout,” “Vietnam,” “The Dirtwater Dynasty” and “Bangkok Hilton.”
DOUG MITCHELL (Producer), George Miller’s longtime business partner for over 40 years, produced the 2015 critically acclaimed feature film “Mad Max: Fury Road,” for which he received an Oscar nomination, and more recently “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” directed by Miller and starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba.
Mitchell was born in Colombia and educated at Scottish boarding schools. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in London, he relocated to Sydney, Australia, where he became the protégé of the late Byron Kennedy, adding his knowledge of finance to the creative mix which resulted in the production entity Kennedy Miller Mitchell.
Their 2006 smash hit “Happy Feet” won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and Mitchell also produced the 2011 hit sequel, “Happy Feet Two,” which reunited the voice talents of Elijah Wood and Robin Williams. He previously won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination as a producer on the worldwide hit “Babe” and was a producer on its sequel, “Babe: Pig in the City.”
His other film credits include “Video Fool for Love”; “Lorenzo’s Oil,” starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon; “Flirting,” with an ensemble cast, including Noah Taylor, Thandie Newton, Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts; “Dead Calm,” starring Sam Neill, Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane; “The Year My Voice Broke,” starring Noah Taylor; and “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” starring Mel Gibson and Tina Turner.
Mitchell’s television projects include the miniseries “Bodyline” and “The Dirtwater Dynasty,” both starring Hugo Weaving; “Vietnam,” starring Nicole Kidman; “The Cowra Breakout”; and “Bangkok Hilton,” starring Nicole Kidman and Hugo Weaving. He also produced the telefilms “40,000 Years of Dreaming,” “Fragments of War,” “The Clean Machine” and “The Riddle of the Stinson.”
NICO LATHOURIS (Writer) has enjoyed a long and successful career as an actor, director, and dramaturg, contributing to literally hundreds of screen hours of popular, award-winning Australian film and television.
He first worked with George Miller early in both their careers when Lathouris played the role of Grease Rat in 1979’s “Mad Max.” Beginning with six-time Oscar winner “Mad Max: Fury Road,” his collaboration with Miller as both writer and dramaturg on the Mad Max Saga continues to explore its world across an array of media, including the “Mad Max” videogame and a New York Times bestselling graphic novel, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Additionally, he collaborated with Miller to tell the story of Geoffrey Bardon and the Papunya Art Movement in the novella The Hidden.
Lathouris is one of the only contemporary artists to be credited with the role of dramaturg, whose task is to interpret and communicate the fundamentals of action across the entire creative process in collaboration with both onscreen and behind-the-scenes talent. Though his career in the arts spans 50 years—encompassing directing and producing for theater, film and television, cinematography, film editing and acting—his most recent focus has been on script editing, screenwriting and dramaturgy. His film credits as a screenwriter and creative producer include the Turkish-produced war drama “The Last Post” (“The Haunted House”) and the improvised dramatic short “Lost in the Woods.” More recently, he served as dramaturg on Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing.”
As an actor, Lathouris was nominated for two Australian Film Institute Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for his role in Michael Jenkins’s “The Heartbreak Kid,” on which he also served as the dramaturg. His numerous credits as a dramaturg also include “Heartbreak High,” “Wildside,” “Blue Murder,” “Looking for Alibrandi,” “Yolgnu Boy,” “Head Start” and “Young Lions.”
A graduate of Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art, with a post-graduate diploma in experimental theater, as well as a post-graduate diploma from Swinburne Film and Television school, Lathouris studied civil engineering at the University of New South Wales before moving into the arts.
SIMON DUGGAN, ASC, ACS (Director of Photography) is a leading New Zealand-born Australian cinematographer with a venerable body of work.
Duggan’s work can next be seen next in George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and Netflix’s “Desert King,” a six-episode series filmed in the outback of Australia, to be released in 2024. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” will world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Duggan’s notable recent work includes the World War II drama “Hacksaw Ridge” (2016), which earned him the Milli (Director of Photography of the Year) Award from the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS), the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Award for Best Cinematography and nominations from the Australian Film Critics Association and the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival.
He shot Disney’s sequel to “Enchanted,” the musical fantasy “Disenchanted” (2022); the romantic comedy “Isn’t It Romantic” (2019); the action fantasy “Warcraft” (2016); Noam Murro’s “300: Rise of an Empire” (2014); and the action thriller “Killer Elite” (2011).
His work on Baz Luhrmann’s feature adaption of “The Great Gatsby” (2013) earned Duggan a Best Cinematography Award from AACTA, a Gold Award from the ACS and a nomination for Best 3D Cinematography at the EnergaCamerimage Film Festival.
Duggan’s first feature, “The Interview” (1998), earned him the best Cinematography Award from the Film Critics Circle of Australia.
Since then, he has photographed dozens of features, where he has collaborated with directors including; Len Wiseman for “Live Free or Die Hard” (2007) and “Underworld: Evolution” (2006); Alex Proyas for “I, Robot” (2004); “Knowing” (2009); and “Garage Days” (2002).
Duggan began his career shooting commercials and has photographed hundreds of international campaigns, with collaborators Noam Murro, Steve Rogers, Jeff Lowe, Misko Iho and Nadia Lee Cohen. His commercial work has earned numerous accolades, including two AICP Awards and multiple Australian Cinematography Society Awards.
ELIOT KNAPMAN (Editor) has a well-established career in Australia spanning the last 15 years. He entered the industry at a young age and was immediately enthralled by the process of editing. Knapman has worked as an assistant editor on some of Australia’s most renowned feature films.
After starting in television as an apprentice, Eliot was given an opportunity as assistant editor on his first feature film: “Legend of the Guardians” from director Zack Snyder. Subsequently, he continued on to major projects, including Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby,” Chris McKay’s “Lego Batman” and Will Gluck’s “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.”
Eliot first worked with George Miller and editor Margaret Sixel on “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Following this project, Eliot was engaged as first assistant editor on their next feature, “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” After this successful collaboration, Eliot was approached to join the team on Kennedy Miller Mitchell’s next project, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” Eliot’s role as Miller’s on set editor (assembling the film live) began at the commencement of principal photography. He continued to work as editor through the entirety of post-production to delivery of the final film.
MARGARET SIXEL (Editor) has been involved in the Australian Film Industry for more than 40 years, serving as a picture and sound editor, as well as a writer and script editor. A graduate of the Australian Film and Television School and University of Cape Town, she has worked on many award-winning dramas and documentaries.
Sixel edited George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road”; the film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won six, including one for Sixel for Best Editing. She also edited Miller’s “Happy Feet,” which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. She also edited the director’s “Babe: Pig in the City” and his personal look at the Australian film industry, “White Fellas Dreaming: A Century of Australian Cinema.” Most recently, she edited “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba.
She also worked on such features as “Lorenzo’s Oil,” “Flirting,” “Fragments of War: The Story of Damien Parer” and “The Clean Machine,” in addition to a number of short films and television projects.
From the height of electronic music, to the cutting edge of film scoring, TOM HOLKENBORG (Composer), a.k.a. Junkie XL, is a Grammy-nominated multi-platinum producer, musician, composer and educator whose versatility puts him on the cutting edge of contemporary music, and whose thirst for innovation is helping to reimagine the world of composition.
Known as a ‘Full-Contact Composer,’ Holkenborg is hands-on at every stage of the composing process, a multi-instrumentalist who combines a mastery of studio engineering, classical musical training and an innate sense of curiosity. He’s as adept working with a 50-piece philharmonic orchestra as he is with a wall of modular synths, playing a bass guitar or building his own physical and digital instruments. His drive to reimagine what’s possible and share that knowledge with the next generation of composers is what makes Holkenborg a unique force, and one of the most in-demand film composers in the world.
Holkenborg’s film scoring credits have grossed over $2 billion at the box office and include “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Deadpool,” “Black Mass,” “Alita Battle Angel,” “Divergent,” “Brimstone,” “The Dark Tower,” “Tomb Raider,” “Terminator: Dark Fate,” both parts of the record-setting “Sonic the Hedgehog,” along with the recent monster hits “Justice League: The Snyder Cut” and “Godzilla vs. Kong.” He also recently scored Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” Adam Wingard’s hit “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” and George Miller’s highly anticipated “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” He has worked with such directors as Peter Jackson, Robert Rodriguez, James Cameron, George Miller, Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder and Tim Miller, among many others.
An educator as well as a creator, Tom is committed to breaking down the barriers of entry in the world of film composition, creating the groundbreaking educational series Studio Time (which has been watched by millions), the free SCORE Academy program and a music composition program at the ArtEZ conservatorium in his home country of the Netherlands. On YouTube, Tom has created an educational series Studio Time, which is available for free and has been viewed millions of times.
Tom is able to draw on his extensive knowledge of classical forms and structures while keeping one finger planted firmly on the pulse of popular music. When his eclectic background is paired with his skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays keyboards, guitar, drums, violin, and bass) and a mastery of studio technology, a portrait emerges of an artist for whom anything is possible. Outside of his own artistry, Tom’s desire to marry technology and classical composition to initiate change and evolution led him to partner with Orchestral Tools to create Tom Holkenborg’s Brass and Tom Holkenborg’s Percussion, his first sample libraries, making world-class sounds available to composers everywhere.
The foundation for Tom’s work in film started in his native Holland, where he created multiple film scores, before undertaking mentorships with celebrated composers Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer, with whom he worked on projects like “Inception,” “Batman vs. Superman” and “The Dark Knight Rises.” Tom’s partnership with Hans was formative, enabling him to hone his own voice and style while learning from one of Hollywood’s most influential composers. Tom’s own Hollywood journey really started to take flight in 2014 with his first major solo project, and the first of his many collaborations with Zack Snyder, “300: Rise of an Empire.” It was the beginning of a scoring schedule that has netted billions of box office dollars, included blockbusters and indie projects, seen Tom work with some of Hollywood’s most lauded directors, and kept him jam packed ever since.
Holkenborg’s music career began in 1993 when he started the industrial rock band Nerve while also producing hardcore and metal bands like Sepultura and Fear Factory. Drawn by electronic breakbeats, he started Junkie XL in 1997, debuting with the album “Saturday Teenage Kick.” Holkenborg went on to produce six albums under the Junkie XL moniker while playing headline shows all over the world. In 2002, he scored a #1 hit in 24 countries with his rework of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation.”
Following the success of his Junkie XL project, Holkenborg collaborated with celebrated artists like Dave Gahan, Robert Smith and Chuck D, and remixed artists such as Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and many more. In addition, Holkenborg created the music for video games like FIFA, Need For Speed, The Sims and SSX, and commercials for global campaigns like Nike, Heineken, Adidas, Cadillac and VISA.
It was only after hearing his track “Dealing With the Roster” featured in the 1998 film “Blade” that Holkenborg got the bug to score films.
The rests, as they say, is history.
From humble beginnings as an 18-year-old touring Australia in an “Evel Knievel”-type thrill show, Queensland-based GUY NORRIS (Action Designer) is now one of the leading action directors / designers in the global film Industry.
Norris burst onto the film scene at the age of 21 on George Miller’s groundbreaking 1981 action film “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.” Guy not only doubled Mel Gibson for all of the Max driving sequences, but he also doubled for Wez, as well as playing several other stunt characters Guy very quickly transitioned to stunt coordinating at the age of 23 and directing 2nd Units by the age of 25.
Over the course of his career, Guy has worked as action director and stunt coordination on over 200 feature films and television series. Highlights include “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” with Peter Jackson; “Moulin Rouge!” and “Australia” with Baz Luhrmann; “Suicide Squad”; “X-Men: Dark Phoenix”; “Ghost in the Shell”; “Triple Frontier”; and “The Suicide Squad” with James Gunn.
Guy has had a unique working relationship with George Miller, collaborating together on more than a dozen projects over a 40-year span, with highlights that include “Babe,” “Happy Feet,” six-time Oscar winner “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Three Thousand Years of Longing” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
Norris has received international recognition of his extraordinary abilities in the film industry. He has been featured in major publications, including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, WIRED and IF. Guy has also received the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture, and dual Taurus World Stunt Awards for Best Stunt Coordinator and/or 2nd Unit Director and Best Stunt Rigging for his work on “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Additionally, Guy co-founded PROXi VP (with his son Harrison), an action design and virtual production company specializing in cutting-edge use of the Unreal Engine for both logistical and creative filmmaking. PROXi were the subject of the Unreal “Creative Disruptors” podcast and have gone on to present at conventions and conferences around the world, including FMX, GDC and Virtual Production Week, by invitation from EPIC.
PJ VOETEN (First Assistant Director), with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” continues his long association with George Miller, which began nearly 40 years ago on “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.” Voeten went on to work on the action unit for the multi-Oscar-nominated hit “Babe” and then served as first assistant director on its sequel, “Babe: Pig in the City,” as well as the Oscar-winning animated feature “Happy Feet.” He rejoined Miller for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which earned six Oscars, and the recent “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba
His recent first AD credits include the 2021 “Mortal Kombat”; “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” and “Peter Rabbit” for Will Gluck; Netflix’s “Okja,” for director Bong Joon Ho; “The Great Wall,” starring Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe and directed by Yimou Zhang; and Alex Proyas’ “Gods of Egypt.”
His many additional credits as first assistant director also include the Rob Cohen-directed films “Alex Cross,” “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” and “Stealth”; “Careless Love”; “Ghost Rider”; “A Little Bit of Soul,” which he also produced; “The Well”; “Love Serenade”; “Children of the Revolution”; and John Duigan’s “Sirens.”
Voeten earlier served as a second assistant director on such films as Duigan’s “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “Flirting”; Gillian Armstrong’s “The Last Days of Chez Nous” and “Hightide”; Baz Luhrmann’s “Strictly Ballroom”; and Stephen Hopkins’ “Dangerous Game,” among others.
As a failing actor with two children to support and a hefty community service detention left to run, COLIN GIBSON (Production Designer) took what he thought would be the easy option and joined the Art Department. Be careful what you wish for… too loud for props, too bad with crayon or calculator for art directing, he was eventually forced into production design, when he became too old and grumpy to take orders from other elderly curmudgeons. Unless they were directors…
And it is largely directors we have to blame for his laughable “career”: lovely, otherwise talented people like Ray Lawrence, Gillian Armstrong, John Duigan, Stephan Elliott, Wim Wenders, Zhang Jimou and, of course, George Miller. All contributed to the delinquency in their own way, either through apathy, benign neglect or the sort of active amusement one might show a monkey on a bicycle.
Riding on the coattails of the talented has proven, if not lucrative, at least amusing, and has been a hell of a way to kill time before he must face the reality of his wasted life; to the televisual wonderment of “Love My Way,” “Nine Perfect Strangers” and “Operation Buffalo,” and feature films including “Bliss,” “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” “Babe,” “The Great Wall,” “Until the End of the World” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” we must now add “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” Perhaps not entirely a wasted life, then?
JENNY BEAVAN (Costume Designer) was brought up in London in a musical family – her father was a cellist, her mother played the viola.
She studied theatre design at The Central School of Art and Design under Ralph Koltai, a leading set designer of his day. She did not initially associate her future career in cinema or broadly based fashion… she had fallen in love with theatre and plays after seeing “Twelfth Night” with her grandfather, a Shakespeare enthusiast, when she was 10-years-old.
Jenny started her career designing for opera, ballet and theatre in the UK and Europe, but in 1977 she reconnected with an old childhood friend, Nick Young, who had commissioned a tele-film for “The South Bank Show” from Merchant Ivory Productions: “Hullabaloo Over Bonnie and Georgie’s Pictures,” to be directed by James Ivory. Nick needed someone to put together a wardrobe of clothes for Dame Peggy Ashcroft, who wanted a companion, and Jenny accompanied her to India to help in any way—this marked the beginning of Beavan’s fruitful collaboration with the legendary director.
She continued to design costumes for Merchant Ivory films in collaboration with John Bright of Cosprop, her friend and mentor. Together they designed “A Room with a View,” “The Bostonians,” “Maurice” and “Remains of the Day,” amongst many other films, gaining nominations and an Academy Award for “A Room with a View.”
Beavan has worked with many distinguished directors on films both huge and small in many parts of the world—these were daily historical stories set in the past—so she was amazed when George Miller asked her to design his costumes for the post apocalyptic “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
After the success of “Fury Road” and a second Academy Award, Jenny found the world opened up and she was offered a great variety of work. These films include “The Black Dahlia” with Brian De Palma; “A Cure for Wellness” with Gore Verbinski; “Sherlock Holmes” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” with Guy Ritchie; “Life” with Daniel Espinosa; “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” with Lasse Hallström; “Christopher Robin” and “White Bird” with Marc Forster; and “The King’s Speech” with Tom Hooper, among others.
“Cruella” (2021) followed—an enormous undertaking set in the 1970’s, following a fashion designer who ends up as Cruella de Vil. Emma Stone and Emma Thompson required approximately 60 costumes between them and prep time was 10 weeks… “Cruella” also had fashion shows, punk concerts, elaborate balls and stunts. Beavan won another Academy Award for “Cruella.”
Jenny is not afraid to experiment with various film genres and refuses to be pigeonholed! Her philosophy: costume design is storytelling and should reflect each script’s narrative… and not be a mark of the designer.
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Beaven has worked in theatre, TV, commercials, and feature films. She has been nominated for BAFTAs, Emmys and Oscars (winning some times!).
During the EnergaCameraimage in Torun, Poland in November 2023, she received the Golden Frog Special Award for Costume Designer with Unique Visual Sensitivity.
LESLEY VANDERWALT (Hair and Makeup Designer) is an award-winning hair and makeup designer, who in 2016 received an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling—and a BAFTA Award—for her work on George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Vanderwalt’s 43-year collaboration with Miller started with “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior,” and most recently they worked together with Lesley as makeup and hair designer on “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Previous partnerships include the Oscar-winning animated film “Happy Feet”; the Oscar-nominated “Babe: Pig in the City”; as well as the acclaimed mini-series “The Dismissal,” “Cowra Breakout,” “Vietnam” and “Bangkok Hilton” with Nicole Kidman.
Lesley has also enjoyed a long association with director Baz Luhrmann and production designer Catherine Martin, starting with “Strictly Ballroom” in 1991 and followed by “Moulin Rouge!,” for which the team earned a Hollywood Makeup Artist and Hair Stylist Guild Award. She went on to work on “Australia” and the hit adaptation of the classic “The Great Gatsby,” for which the team earned another nomination for Best Period Makeup.
Other films as hair and makeup designer include James Wan’s “Aquaman”; Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Covenant”; Alex Proyas’ “Dark City”; “Gods of Egypt,” starring Gerard Butler and Geoffrey Rush; “Knowing,” with Rose Byrne, Ben Mendelsohn and Nicolas Cage; “Blood Oath” in 1989; “Ghost Rider”; “Stealth”; “Beyond Borders,” as personal makeup designer to Clive Owen and Angelina Jolie; “Scooby-Doo” in 1991 as personal make-up designer to Sarah Michelle Geller; George Lucas’s “Stars Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones”; “Shine”; “Blood Oath”; and Gillian Armstrong’s “High Tide” and “The Last Days of Chez Nous.”
Lesley is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts, and The Australian Production Design Guild.
ANDREW JACKSON (Visual Effects Supervisor) began his career in London, working for architects and industrial design companies. In 1982, he moved to Sydney, where he started his own company, focused on architectural and industrial design prototyping, as well as the production of his own line of furniture, clocks and lights.
In 1988, Jackson expanded his model making business to include practical special effects for film and television and, over the next decade, worked on numerous projects. During the ‘90s, recognizing the growing popularity of 3D animation, he trained himself in the art form and utilized his new skills to build 3D models of designs to show his clients. With a view to expanding his skills in 3D animation, he took a temporary position with Garner McLelland Design in Sydney to work as a 3D artist on the first “Farscape” series, while his business partner continued to manage the model making workshop. The experience further fueled Jackson’s belief that computer-generated effects were the future, and he contracted his business to broadcast design house zSpace to run its 3D animation department for two years. Following his time at zSpace, he took a position with Digital Pictures as head of 3D. In this role, he managed a team of digital artists, overseeing television commercial productions for an international client base.
In 2004, Jackson brought his skill base to Animal Logic and has since worked as the visual effects supervisor on the hugely popular commercial “Big Ad” for Carlton Draught, as well as developing concepts for a number of feature films. Jackson was Animal Logic’s 3D lead on Zack Snyder’s breathtaking hit “300,” and served as assistant VFX supervisor on “Fool’s Gold,” directed by Andy Tennant. In 2008, Jackson held the post of visual effects supervisor for Alex Proyas’s thriller “Knowing.”
Jackson began his collaboration with George Miller when he served as the Sky Rig Developer and visual effects supervisor on the live action portion of “Happy Feet Two.” He segued right into the six-time Oscar winner “Mad Max: Fury Road” as VFX supervisor.
Since then, he has also worked with Oscar-winning director Chris Nolan three times—on 2017’s “Dunkirk,” 2020’s “Tenet” and 2023’s Best Picture, “Oppenheimer.”
His additional credits include Netflix’s 2019 “The King,” starring Timotheé Chalamet.
ROBERT MACKENZIE (Sound Designer) has been enriching the film world with his creative soundscapes for over 25 years, completing soundtracks for some of the world’s most influential directors while garnering numerous accolades from just about every prestigious source both in Australia and internationally.
In 2021, Mackenzie and his team at Robert Mackenzie Sound (RMS) completed the sound design and mixing of Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound, George Miller’s “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” “No Exit,” “River” (directed by Jennifer Peedom), and Season 3 of “Mr Inbetween,” for which the team won the ASSG Award for Best Sound.
From January 2020 until February 2021, Mackenzie and the RMS team spent their COVID lockdown time creating the energetically fueled, action-packed, number one-at-the-box office, AACTA-winning soundtrack for “Mortal Kombat,” along with updating Wong Kar Wai’s masterpieces “Chungking Express” and “In the Mood for Love” for the Criterion Collection.
In 2019, Mackenzie completed work on David Michôd’s medieval epic “The King,” as well as Will Gluck’s hilariously cheeky “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.”
In 2018, Mackenzie completed the Sound Design and Mix on Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale,” Mirrah Foulkes’ “Judy & Punch,” and “Mystify: Michael Hutchence,” the AACTA-winning Michael Hutchence Documentary.
Mackenzie brought home the Oscar, the Motion Picture Sound Editors Guild Award (MPSE) and Australia’s AACTA for his work on Mel Gibson’s 2017 emotionally charged war film, “Hacksaw Ridge.” This was in addition to receiving the BAFTA nomination and AACTA Win for Sound Design for Garth Davis’s internationally adored “Lion.”
Last year, Mackenzie completed Davis’s “Foe” and Glendyn Ivin’s seven-episode, AACTA Award-winning TV drama “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.”