Anya Taylor-Joy teases Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa

Mad Max: Fury Road exploded onto the big screen in 2015, taking viewers on an adrenaline-fueled, post-apocalyptic chase that took home six Oscars and left us gibbering for more. Though that movie was a standalone adventure, writer and director George Miller has been hard at work on a follow-up called Furiosa, about the younger years of Charlize Theron’s badass road warrior character.

Since this is a prequel, however, the titular character will be played by a different actor. The younger version of Furiosa is played by Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit, The Witch). Taylor-Joy has certainly displayed the acting chops to pull off a role like Furiosa, which is no small statement considering how excellent Theron was in Fury Road.

Anya Taylor-Joy opens up about “life-changing” Furiosa shoot

While out promoting her new movie The Menu, Taylor-Joy also talked up the Fury Road prequel. she told Entertainment Weekly that she had just finished work on Furiosa, and that it was the longest shoot she’s ever done in her career.

“It will probably take me the two years before it comes out to be able to digest what happened,” she said. “I just finished it, so it’s a bit: wow. Life-changing. Longest shoot I’ve ever done, for sure, but with the most unbelievable crew, and I mean, what a character. I had her. We had each other.”

Prior to working on Furiosa, Taylor-Joy filmed The Menu with Nicholas Hoult, who appeared in Fury Road as the War Boy Nux. That movie had a famously challenging shoot, and he was able to reassure her. “He was just incredibly supportive of me,” Taylor-Joy recalled. “We’re such good friends, and I think he deliberately didn’t tell me too much, but his overall theme was: You’ve got this, you’re going to be okay, and you’ve definitely got it in you to handle it. It’s going to be wild but you can do it. It’s just nice to have support from a friend like that.”

Taylor-Joy also told IndieWire that the Furiosa shoot was “the dirtiest and bloodiest” she’s ever been involved with, which is “genuinely saying something” considering that she’s gotten her hands plenty dirty on movies like The Witch, The New Mutants and The Northman.

Anya Taylor-Joy can stunt drive, but doesn’t have a driver’s license

Here’ a fun fact: Despite starring in a movie about outrageous car chases in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Taylor-Joy can’t drive. “I don’t actually have a license, so I can’t drive. I can’t on a highway, I can’t parallel park, but if you need me to do a juicy 180 in a truck, I can do that and not hit the camera people, which is great,” she said. “Eventually, I will be in a place long enough to get a driver’s license and then I’ll be really happy, because then I can play. But in terms of first cars, I think I’m quite spoiled in the fact that they were built by the Mad Max art department.”

"If a driving instructor gets in a car with me, all I know how to do is crazy stunt driving. I’m planning on getting my stunt driver’s certificate…so then I’ll be able to do all of my driving in all films, which would be great. But I fear for the poor man or woman that is taking the test with me, because gentle, I am not."

Furiosa has wrapped filming and is due out on May 24, 2024.

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h/t The A.V. Club