Director George Miller on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
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'.
To coincide with the film's global release, Peter Gray sat down with the genius filmmaker as he premiered the film in Sydney, Australia to discuss the road to bringing this character's story to fruition, what he thought couldn't be done with the film's effects, and being surprised by the villainous skill of Chris Hemsworth.
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'.
To coincide with the film's global release, Peter Gray sat down with the genius filmmaker as he premiered the film in Sydney, Australia to discuss the road to bringing this character's story to fruition, what he thought couldn't be done with the film's effects, and being surprised by the villainous skill of Chris Hemsworth.
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00:00Peter Gray from the A Year Review.
00:01Hello, George.
00:02Hello.
00:04Before I get to Furiosa, I just have to say,
00:07as someone who saw The Witches of Eastwick
00:09when I was very young, incredible, incredible film.
00:13Like, I think Jack Nicholson's performance in that
00:15is, like, immaculate.
00:17Yeah.
00:18And I'm, like, someone who thinks Michelle Pfeiffer
00:20is, like, one of the greatest living actresses of our time.
00:22Yeah, who'd you see?
00:24And I sort of see, like, Charlize Theron
00:27almost as, like, a sort of a modern-day version
00:30of Michelle Pfeiffer in the way that, like, she chooses
00:32her roles and, like, her beauty is always sort of
00:36what they see before her acting ability.
00:38That's true, yeah.
00:39And I was wondering, like, when you were working
00:41with her on Fury Road, did you ever discuss
00:45the story of Furiosa with her?
00:47Oh, yeah.
00:48Yeah?
00:49Oh, yeah, big time.
00:50We were, in order to tell the story
00:55of Fury Road, which happens basically
00:59over three days and two nights, very compressed,
01:02all the exposition, all the understanding
01:04and backstory had to be on the run.
01:10In order to make that coherent,
01:13we had to know everything about Furiosa
01:16and Max and everyone else, and not only the people,
01:20but the vehicles and the world and the way it worked,
01:24the human ecology of the place, the dynamics of it,
01:28the Immortan Joe, where it was.
01:30We had to know everything.
01:31Yeah.
01:32So we wrote basically two pieces.
01:35One was a screenplay on Furiosa with concept art,
01:40and we also did one on Max in the year before
01:44we encountered them.
01:45And everyone got that, including the cast.
01:50Yeah.
01:51And so, and otherwise I don't know
01:56how else we could have done that,
01:58because everyone has to kind of have,
02:01everyone has to have some sort of shared focus
02:04in order to, and work to sort of organising ideas
02:10that made it all cohesive.
02:12So that's how we came to do Furiosa.
02:16Because when I was watching Fury Road,
02:17I realised, you know, she says about,
02:20it's been 7,000 days and the ones that I couldn't count.
02:23And then watching Furiosa, I was like,
02:25wow, this goes back to that.
02:27And like the character of like Valkyrie's
02:29back then as well.
02:30Like it was incredible to see it,
02:32to watch those two films back to back the way that I did.
02:35And you just realise how cohesive it is as a story.
02:38Yeah, yeah.
02:39So that's great.
02:40Yeah.
02:41It's, I mean, as you saw,
02:45Furiosa runs, butts directly into the Furiosa story.
02:50Yeah.
02:51Uninterrupted.
02:52Yeah.
02:53And so, but we know when they talk about Gastown
03:00in Fury Road, we see it from afar.
03:03They talk about Bullet Farm.
03:05Yeah.
03:06And we see the people, the Bullet Farmer,
03:07and everybody coming from Bullet Farm,
03:09but we never see it.
03:10Yeah.
03:11Now, you know, now we know where it is and so on.
03:14And it's not, you know,
03:18I think to be able to tell stories about these worlds,
03:23it's obligatory to do it in that way.
03:25I can't imagine anybody doing it any other way, really.
03:30Yeah.
03:31And obviously, you know, you've,
03:33I believe that there was possible,
03:35like you didn't want to do de-aging
03:38when it came to Charlize Theron.
03:39Like did, was there ever the possibility
03:42of this story being told with her?
03:43Or did you always want to like,
03:45always go younger and like choose another actress
03:47to play her?
03:48Initially.
03:49Yeah.
03:50Initially, I thought it'd be great to do it with Charlize.
03:53Yeah.
03:55But we, when we made Fury Road,
04:02as has been well-documented in a book,
04:06it was a very dysfunctional relationship
04:08with the studio Warner Brothers.
04:10And I subsequently, you know, went on to,
04:14I made another film and so on.
04:17Me, in the meantime, there were,
04:20there's a third owner of Warner Brothers parent company
04:24from when we worked on Fury Road.
04:26There's four different regimes.
04:30So there's still some people
04:33who've been there for many years and very key people,
04:37but the, you know, the principles of the company
04:41are completely different than the fourth group.
04:44And also people who are completely different,
04:49a different complexion than we had on Fury Road,
04:51which was, you know,
04:54they were going through a succession thing
04:56with, at Warner Brothers at the time.
05:00And it got very dysfunctional,
05:02basically fear-driven, I think.
05:04And it was an adversary relationship.
05:07The film was made in spite
05:10of the interference from the studio.
05:14And so by the time that all sorted itself out
05:19and the dust settled,
05:20we also had a litigation against them
05:22because they breached our contract and things like that.
05:25That was all settled.
05:27And by that, you know,
05:28pretty soon the best part of a decade's gone.
05:31And I did look at the idea of de-aging Charlize
05:36because as you saw in this story,
05:38we go Fury Road from 10 to 28.
05:41Yeah.
05:42So it's 18 years effectively.
05:44And I did look at it and we've seen examples,
05:48but, you know,
05:50and it's still not there as technology.
05:55And, you know, as I've said,
05:58you saw the Irishman,
06:00what Marty Scorsese did with that.
06:03You saw what Ang Lee did with Gemini Man,
06:05with, what's it, Will Smith?
06:10Yeah.
06:11Young and old.
06:12And it's just not convincing.
06:14And if it does get to be convincing,
06:16you'll be saying, oh, look how well the technology,
06:18it's all about the technology.
06:20Yeah.
06:21Not the actual character.
06:21Yeah.
06:22So we had to find someone who could fill Fury,
06:26you know, take on Furious and fill Charlize's boots,
06:31which is very difficult.
06:32Difficult.
06:33I mean, but then you get Anya Taylor-Joy who,
06:36I mean, there was,
06:38I think it's like towards the end of the film
06:39when, you know, like she's shaved her head,
06:42she's lost her arm.
06:43And we just hear her say, I need a vehicle.
06:47And that line, I was like, that sounds like,
06:49that was so impeccably like Charlize Theron.
06:52Did she have to work with like a dialect coach
06:55or like the G?
06:56That was all Anya's decision?
06:58I mean, these are great actors.
07:00Yeah.
07:01I mean, it's like, we didn't even have to discuss it.
07:04Yeah.
07:06She just, and it's only in retrospect
07:08that I realised she did it.
07:09People go, oh, that sounds a lot like it.
07:12Yeah.
07:13I mean, but no, that's just something
07:14she decided to do off her own bat.
07:16Yeah.
07:17And then you get Chris Hemsworth
07:19in his like first Australian film.
07:22Yeah.
07:23His performance in this, like I,
07:26did you always know you wanted him for this?
07:29Like, because I feel like we're seeing him
07:31in a completely new light as an actor in this,
07:34like obviously prosthetics aside,
07:36just his performance is manic in the best way possible.
07:40Like, was he someone that you always knew
07:43you wanted to work with or that you saw him as,
07:46you know, in this role?
07:47No, because a decade ago when we wrote it,
07:52I didn't even think of casting him in that,
07:55but I had some, the character in my mind,
07:59and I sort of knew what he needed to feel like and look,
08:02and we actually had concept drawings of him,
08:06but I couldn't think of anyone.
08:07By the time we decided to do the bit,
08:08I couldn't think of anybody.
08:10And Chris, because he lives in Australia,
08:15I knew of his work, of course.
08:17Yeah.
08:18And, you know, loved the quality he brings,
08:22but we met, and in that conversation,
08:27which wasn't much more than an hour,
08:29I really realised, hey, wait a moment,
08:31there's a lot more to Chris Hemsworth than meets the eye.
08:35The guy has got a tremendous,
08:40multi-layered guy.
08:42Yeah.
08:43For someone so young, incredibly wise.
08:46And it's evident in what he says and the way he behaves.
08:51It's evident in his family.
08:53I got to know his parents, exceptional people.
08:57So suddenly I'm thinking, oh God, he'd be really,
09:02I love the way he approaches his work.
09:04Yeah.
09:05He's highly disciplined, very,
09:11without going into what makes a great actor,
09:13by the way, it's great that you mentioned Jack Nicholson,
09:16because he's an actor who I learnt so much from,
09:21and a very wise man too.
09:23The best actors are very evolved human beings, I find,
09:27in order to do it.
09:29Those that endure.
09:30Yeah.
09:34Anyway, with Chris, he read the script,
09:37and his response to the script,
09:39he saw things in it that I didn't even see myself,
09:43and that proved to be the case during the shooting.
09:46Yeah.
09:46He somehow discovered that character,
09:49and there was stuff that, I'm watching through the monitors,
09:55I'm saying, wait a minute,
09:56how the hell did he get to that?
09:58It was a really interesting thing to experience.
10:01Yeah.
10:01And then by the time we got it cut together,
10:03it was entirely what he was able to achieve.
10:09So, the guy can do anything, he really can.
10:15And it's not in a glib way.
10:17No, I mean, it is kind of-
10:18He's got a tremendous rigour.
10:20It is kind of annoying that he's as attractive as he is,
10:22and he's as funny as he is.
10:23Yeah, people say that, but yeah,
10:27it's, I don't see him as attractive,
10:30I see him as demented, so I really do, you know?
10:34But like, speaking of the things
10:36that you were surprised to see,
10:37I understand in Fury Road, Guy Norris
10:42was sort of showing you some of the effects,
10:47and you were like,
10:48I don't know if this is gonna be possible without CGI.
10:50Was there anything that he brought to Furiosa
10:53that surprised you,
10:54when he sort of showed you how possible it can be?
10:59Yeah, well, yes, so we, for instance,
11:02that sequence where we have the mortar flyers,
11:04so-called those guys with their, you know,
11:08parasails and hang liners and things like that,
11:13I thought, gee, you know, that's gonna be very tricky.
11:17It's something we were going to do something similar
11:20in Fury Road, we'd actually storyboarded a sequence,
11:23but just a few brief moments in that story,
11:30and it just, you know, we didn't even shoot it,
11:32because it was just, didn't fit,
11:34we didn't have the time, you know,
11:37you're always culling.
11:39Yeah.
11:41But, so that was a big, you know,
11:45that was something that in the preparation,
11:49which was very careful and meticulous that you have to do,
11:53particularly, you know, with stunts,
11:55particularly with extended stunts.
11:58So there was that sequence,
12:00there were, you know, there was a lot,
12:03there was a lot where we had to get,
12:07you know, we've got the actors involved in stunts
12:09that they had to do themselves,
12:10you can do it today, if they're up for it,
12:15then you can do it safely.
12:17And, but, so yeah, there was a lot, there always is,
12:22but if you go about it in a way that you prepare carefully
12:26and you can figure out how to do it,
12:28and that's, you know, you need to storyboard,
12:31you need to pre-vis, and we had Guy
12:35and one of his sons, Harrison, invented,
12:38or really pioneered a system of working with Unreal Engine
12:43to do really sophisticated pre-vis
12:46with cameras and everything.
12:49It was custom built for this film, it was called Toy Box,
12:52and we played with that.
12:54So instead of doing storyboards, which are pretty static,
12:59you know, you can do them in two dimensions,
13:02but you don't have the dimension of time.
13:05But now with pre-vis, you can do it
13:07and be much more precise.
13:08So by the time you've got to shoot, get to shoot,
13:11everybody knows what you're looking for within the shots.
13:15And that still gives you enough freedom
13:18to play with anything new that presents itself
13:21in the actual reality of shooting it.
13:24No, I just, I think, I mean, looking at this film,
13:27Fury Road, the Mad Max series in general,
13:29the other films you've made,
13:30like it's just the eye for creativity,
13:34the eye for detail is something that is really
13:38just remarkable to watch every time I see one of your films.
13:41So just watching this is, you know,
13:44it's crazy to think what is possible
13:47and what someone can create.
13:48So I just, yeah, hats off to you
13:50for everything that you've done with Australian cinema.
13:54Thank you so much.
13:55Well, it's, again, it's really good
13:58when you work with really good people
14:02and you basically find ways to communicate
14:12in a very, very collaborative way.
14:15And if that goes right through a crew,
14:17I mean, you know, there were a thousand people on the set
14:23with all the support, it's like an army,
14:27and all the stunt crews and whatever.
14:29The, by the time we got post-production and visual effects,
14:33there are closer to 3,000 people on that film.
14:36So there's gotta be a way where you can make everybody's,
14:40everybody working together in a way that,
14:47where everybody knows what everyone else is doing.
14:50Well, it's come together very nicely.
14:52So you have to really do that.
14:54It's hard to do, and Australians are really good at it.
14:57Australians and New Zealanders are really good at it.
15:01It's something in the ethos, in the culture,
15:04relaxed discipline, non-hierarchical,
15:08people not working in silos and with rigid orthodoxies,
15:13people sort of being open to new things,
15:15new ways of doing it, not being afraid of new technologies,
15:20but using the tools well.
15:23That's really important because it's always changing.
15:25Yeah, yeah.
15:26Well, thank you.
15:27Thank you so much.
15:28Yeah, thanks.
15:29Thank you.