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After spending the better part of a year filming on location in Sydney and Broken Hill surrounded by local cast and crew, co-star Chris Hemsworth was laughing in his ear and director Dr. They put her through all sorts of punitive setups. : Mad Max Saga, you’d imagine Anya Taylor-Joy might be sick of Australians by now.
“I’m not fed up with Australians at all,” she says in her enchanting transatlantic accent, while back in Sydney to promote the latest installment of Miller’s dystopian epic. “I was actually very happy when I landed at Sydney Airport. It felt like home. I know the city very well now.”
You might say it’s a typical movie star pattern. But she certainly looks at home, sitting with her legs tucked in with the Opera House in the background, wearing an oversized white leather jacket with a collar that almost hugs her body. At the film’s premiere the next day at the State Theatre, she will strut down the arrow-studded red carpet looking like Saint Sebastian from Starlets in a vintage dress from Paco Rabanne’s Spring/Summer 1996 collection. . Co-star Hemsworth, unable to put his arm around her or stand close enough to her, hovers awkwardly next to her as a photographer takes pictures.
She said that in addition to traveling to rural New South Wales to film the series’ iconic Red, she spent a total of about six-and-a-half months here, mainly based in the inner-city Pado, during filming. (yes, she even adopted our terminology). “Earth”. Taylor-Joy, now 28 years old, says matter-of-factly, “This is the longest period of my adult life.”
Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth attend the Australian premiere of Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga. Credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
“The schedule was incredibly demanding. I primarily worked six days a week. But when I had the chance, I was able to not only see the city, but also check out as many natural swimming spots as possible. I made the most of it. I love swimming in cold water. I love Bronte,” she says. If I were the mayor of Bronte Beach I would put this on a billboard somewhere.
Her Australian obsession doesn’t end there. On this promotional trip, she’s traveling with Nick Cave’s book Faith, Hope, and Massacre, and has confirmed that our Prince of Darkness will be performing literally around the corner in two days. When I told her, I heard her say, “Hmm.”
“Wait, is he here?” she asked excitedly, rattling her long red nails. “I’ll look into it as soon as this interview is over! I’m obsessed with Nick Cave. I just love him.” (After secretly marrying partner, musician Malcolm McRae, in 2022) In case the wedding photos she posted on Instagram last month didn’t make the news, Taylor-Joy has turned to the dark side: “I don’t even dream of a wedding. The only thing I dreamed of was an anatomically correct heart cake.
After her breakout role as Thomasin in Robert Eggers’ A24 pilgrimage horror The Witches (2015), it was her film debut, and she was wiser than the Disney Channel pilot, which was offered on the same day. This is the role he chose. Miller, who won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role as drug-addicted chess master Beth Harmon in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit (2020), was cast in the Mad Max universe as a mistake. It’s Taylor-Joy’s biggest gig to date. He took over one of the most respected leading roles in modern cinema.
Released in 2015 after decades of production hell, Mad Max: Fury Road became a monumental blockbuster for Miller, earning critical and fan praise and six Oscar nominations. 1985’s Mad Max The series, which had been dormant since “Beyond Thunderdome,” was revived. Much of the film’s appeal lies in the story of General Furiosa, a shaved-headed, one-armed, ass-kicking rebel tasked with rescuing his five wives from the abuse of Wasteland General Immortan Joe and bringing them to the Green Place. Charlize Theron’s performance matched her. The idyllic matrilineal society in which she grew up. In the vibrant pre-#MeToo environment in which this work was released, Furiosa’s feminist fable was a radical salve.
The success of this film led to a prequel that further explored Furiosa’s already detailed origin story, which is no surprise. But while Miller initially considered rejecting the idea of using anti-aging technology on Theron, it also turned out to be a potential land mine for anyone tasked with stepping into Theron’s formidable boots. It was also pointed out that
Tom Burke, Taylor-Joy, director George Miller, and Hemsworth filmed in Furiosa’s Broken Hill. Credit: Jacine Borland
“Like everyone else in the world, I fell in love with Furiosa through Charlize. But as a performer, when you’re so obsessed with imitating someone else, you inevitably lose out,” Taylor said. =Joy says. “So my responsibility was to tell the story of the character in this script. And because it was a very different script than ‘Fury Road,’ George was very clear about what she wanted her to be.” I had an idea and I just gave it my best shot.”
If Fury Road is a thrash metal song about lean ideas expressed with frenetic frenzy, Furiosa is a five-part symphony. This epic epic was created by a cast and crew of over 3,000 people and covers the 16 years leading up to Fury Road and Furiosa’s journey from innocent child to tortured mercenary. Taylor-Joy shares the role with 14-year-old actor Aryla Brown, and while she appears on screen for about half of the 148-minute running time, she spends most of her performance in silence, and the doe Her eyes and strong body (she attributes this to her childhood ballet training).
Miller prohibited Taylor-Joy from shaving her head for the role. “I really wanted to do it,” she says. Credit: Jasin Boland
Miller first imagined Taylor-Joy playing the role after seeing her performance in Edgar Wright’s swinging ’60s nostalgic film Last Night in Soho, released in 2021. says. “This was right at the beginning of COVID-19 and Edgar showed me an early cut and I was blown away by her,” he says.
“It’s a gut reaction, first of all, but at the same time she was timeless. There was something fierce and intense about her. Previously[in Fury Road]She had a big hurdle because it seemed to overlap with the character she played. When I started talking to Edgar about her, he said without hesitation, “Do it!” He said she was the whole article, had everything, could do anything, and that proved to be true. ”
Taylor-Joy and Matt Smith star in Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho.” “I was shocked by her,” says George Miller. Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh /Focus features
Miller asked her to audition by reciting Peter Finch’s monologue, “I’m mad as hell…” from Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satirical film Network. This scene encouraged the lower classes to use their righteous anger to remake the world for the better. Taylor-Joy filmed two or three takes, with Miller giving notes and enhancing the audition in real time.
“As I got to know her, talked to her, and prepared for the film, I realized that she had all the qualities needed to play this role,” Miller says. “So I’m shocked in a way that she was able to get through it at such a young age. I think it’s inherent in her, plus I think she has the skill level. Masu.”
In the film’s production notes, Taylor-Joy said she approached the role in ways she wouldn’t normally do. “Okay, I think this is confusing, and it’s the kind of thing that annoys me,” she said, playfully annoyed, when I asked her to elaborate.
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“I’ve never wanted to be a method actor. What I was trying to say, and I think most actors would agree with this, is that character influences the way people behave. You You spend 16 hours a day being someone else, and of course other people have an effect on you. But in Furiosa’s case, she knew it was going to be an experience she would have to live in real time. The moment I read the script, I knew this was going to be something I had to feel.
“I was really lucky that the staff and I got along so well, but it was an incredibly isolating experience,” she added. “She’s a very isolated character. Even though I had cast members that I really loved, I was very distant from them. And the schedule that I was in, if I wasn’t in the main unit, I was very distant from them. I was in the unit, so I was working all the time.”
Hollywood is a fast-paced place for young stars to break out, and Taylor-Joy has felt it all since the success of The Queen’s Gambit, which saw her play a bizarre role in the gourmet satire The Menu (2022). . Traveling to and from Eggers in the Viking epic The Northman (2022). She provided the voice of Princess Peach in the box office hit animated film “Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023). This year, she appeared in a cameo role as the Reverend Mother Aria Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2, hinting at a bigger role in the upcoming sequel, and Furiosa is also an epic, physical figure. I feel part of this considered direction towards a blockbuster that requires.
Taylor-Joy poses for promotional photos for Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga in Mexico City this week. Credit: AP
“I feel like we’re stepping into a new era[in terms of role selection]because for a long time people didn’t know that they would take breaks between projects, so this incredible opportunity “I just kept saying yes to it,” she says. “I was really, just really interested in characters and stories. And I’m lucky that after 10 years of working non-stop, I’m now able to say, ‘Okay, I’ve done a lot of things, but I don’t know what new things I want to do. I feel lucky to have had that experience. What would I want to do to be forced to evolve? I have no interest in being satisfied with the status quo and always want to grow. So I hope I can say yes to more growth opportunities. ”
In May 2021, Taylor-Joy, who was the host of the American sketch comedy show “Saturday Night Live,” said during a monologue that Taylor-Joy, who was born in Miami and raised in Buenos Aires, started the show in “my native language.” I asked for permission to begin. It surprised viewers accustomed to her British accent. It felt like a half-move to reveal her on-screen persona.
“People have no idea! It’s confusing to me,” she says of assumptions about her identity. “But it’s a big part of who I am. And in this industry, I don’t really get a chance to bring that element of myself. For example, I’d love to make a movie in Spanish, which would be so cool. Not only for me, but for my family. I’m a very proud Latina.”
For Furiosa, the appeal was the prospect of working with Miller, the scale of the project, and the physical training and precision stunt work, a rare attraction that appealed to her “ballet brain and perfectionist brain.” It was on. Like the shattered head of Furiosa’s victim, you can sense Taylor-Joy getting as much out of her role as Miller did.
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“I remember watching ‘Fury Road,’ and it’s definitely one of my top three movie experiences of all time, and I just thought, I remember that, and I know it’s a unique experience. I know working on it is just not like anything else. And I was right,” Taylor-Joy says.
“You’re talking about a movie set that starts with, ‘Start your engines.’ Not ‘camera, set, action,’ but literally ‘Start your engines.’ As someone who seeks intensity, that was something that brightened me up,” she added. “And there’s a very interesting kinship between the people who made the Mad Max movies. We all know our own brand of crazy, but it’s no different than any other movie set in the world. It’s different from the movies. The whole experience was completely unique.”
Furiosa: The Mad Max Saga will be released in theaters on May 23rd.
