Over the next two weeks, I guarantee many of us will have at least two good hours. That’s because, in the lead-up to Furiosa: A Mad Max Story, many of us will take that time and rewatch Mad Max: Fury Road. The 2015 George Miller film almost instantly became an all-time classic and a rewatch will add worthy context going into its latest iteration, as well as two hours of pure cinematic joy.
Anya Taylor-Joy, the actress taking over the role of Furiosa from Charlize Theron, also rewatched Mad Max: Fury Road before making Furiosa, but only once. Beyond that, she focused on, and repeatedly rewatched, a specific section of the movie for a specific reason.
“Fury Road is one of my favorite movies [and] I watched it once about a year before I did this because I needed to have it in my DNA,” Taylor Joy told io9 this week. “But I really didn’t want to do a copy. That just didn’t feel right to either Charlize or myself. But I did watch the first 10 minutes of Fury Road over and over and over again to understand the filmmaking. This is a very different movie. The shot length is very different. The camera movements are very different, but it still helps to understand when you have three units constantly capturing content, how all of this is going to be stitched together. It lands you in the world a lot more.”
Focusing on one section of the movie to understand a director may seem odd but there’s a good reason for it. Even though Taylor-Joy starred in The Witch, Split, and Last Night in Soho, all made by excellent directors, George Miller was an entirely different experience. “I like to describe this film as being painted by George. And I really do mean ‘paint,’ because that’s how he composes these scenes, these set pieces,” Taylor-Joy said. “We had three units running at all times, and he was on top of each of them. He could be working with Chris [Hemsworth] on main unit. I’d be on second unit. And I did a bunch of stunts or takes of a stunt, and then he’d call and go, ‘Yes, I love it, but actually we need you to do it again with your helmet one inch higher.’ Like that level of orchestration. It’s very, very impressive.”
And, hopefully, audiences will be impressed when Furiosa: A Mad Max Story opens on May 24. Mad Max: Fury Road (as well as the other Mad Max films) are all streaming on, appropriately enough, Max.
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