Chris Hemsworth: I will remember working on Furiosa, both the good and bad

Auteur George Miller's Mad Max franchise, which started in 1979, is characterised by a combination of jaw-dropping visuals, and deep lore about a grungy, desolate, post-apocalyptic world. Miller is now ready with an all-new addition to the franchise, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. The film will serve as both a spin-off and prequel to the last film, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). The upcoming film will see the return of a slew of technical members from Fury Road, including screenwriter Lathouris, film editor Margaret Sixel, costume designer Jenny Beavan, and composer Tom Holkenborg AKA JunkieXL. Anya Taylor-Joy will be playing a younger version of Furiosa, originally played by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, while Chris Hemsworth plays biker-warlord Dementus.

Reflecting on the character, Anya reveals that the character of Furiosa felt closer to her authentic self, "The second I read the script for Furiosa, I realised this is going to be one 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 making it my own. It was just genuine for me."

Anya is no stranger to playing complicated roles. She played a young girl haunted by paranormal elements in Robert Eggers' The Witch and a chess prodigy in the Netflix drama The Queen's Gambit. Elaborating on how she feels connected with Furiosa, Anya says, "I've only felt this way about three characters before. The first was my first ever film, The Witch, which I didn't realise 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. And for Furiosa, I knew it from the start." 

While Anya portrays the titular character, Chris Hemsworth, known for his versatile roles, takes on the challenge of playing the antagonist, warlord Dementus. In the film, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by Dementus. When asked about his experience as a villain in the wasteland, Hemsworth shares, "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. Both the good and bad."