Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga/Trivia

== Trivia ==
* Filmed in New South Wales, Australia. All Mad Max movies have been filmed in Australia, with the exception of Fury Road, when record rain falls transformed the normally arid desert areas into lush green growth areas. 
* Mad Max: Fury Road producer and first assistant director, P. J. Voeten has said of casting Chris Hemsworth, "George saw Chris [Hemsworth] initially as a courtesy and then fell in love with the idea. He's going to play totally against type, the lead baddie. Unfortunately, we've got to find all of our other characters that aren't around anymore: a new Immortan, a new Bullet Farmer, and a few others." 
* Anya Taylor-Joy doesn't have her driver's license, despite learning to do a J-turn on her first day of stunt school. 
* Chris Hemsworth said, "When you do an action film, a lot of the time you're trying different things, you're experimenting, and you're trying to make the sequence as impressive and as big as possible, and you have backups and other options, and that can be exhausting. What was refreshing working with George is that every frame was thought out. Every single frame was necessary. It was servicing the whole. It was part of a grander plan and a message, so there was no waste. Everything you see is essential, and means something, and supports the characters' journey, the narrative, the overall arc of the film. It was exhausting in the best way. All of us showed up and were willing to commit and throw ourselves on the line to service this journey and this film, and this series that has existed for 40-something years now." 
* George Miller met with Anya Taylor-Joy immediately after seeing her performance in a rough edit of Last Night in Soho (2021), according to director Edgar Wright. 
* A 15-minute action sequence in the film, known during production as "Stairway to Nowhere," the sequence marks a turning point for Furiosa. It took 78 days to shoot with close to 200 some people working on it daily. George Miller did extensive storyboarding for the sequence, until he found the right way to do it. Anya Taylor Joy revealed,"George and I would have these big conversations about why this particular set piece was so long. It's because you see an accumulation of skills over the course of a battle, and that's very important for understanding how resourceful furiosa is, but also her grit. It's the longest sequence any of us ever shot. On the day we finished, everybody got a 'Stairway To Nowhere' wine!" 
* At one point during development, Jodie Comer was considered for the role of Furiosa and Richard Madden was considered for one of the main male roles. 
* Anya Taylor-Joy wanted to shave her head like Charlize Theron did for Fury Road, but her modeling contracts required her to keep her hair long. Furthermore, George Miller himself felt that Anya's hairstyle was far too iconic to shave it. Ultimately, Furiosa cuts her hair during the latter part of the film. 
* Chris Hemsworth previously auditioned for Max Rockatansky for Mad Max: Fury Road, but lost the role to Tom Hardy. He ended up getting cast as Dementus for this movie instead. 
* Filming of gate scenes and sound stage scenes took place in a vacant development in Sydney (Melrose Park/Ermington) in July-August 2022. 
* Though Charlize Theron was disappointed over being unable to play Furiosa again herself, she nonetheless voiced her approval for Anya Taylor-Joy taking her place, calling her "one of the greatest f*cking actresses" in an interview. 
* George Miller said this film's script was already complete before Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) was filmed, "In order to tell that story cohesively, we had to know everything that happened in the time before, so we wrote a story about Furiosa from the time she was taken as a child, as she refers to in Fury Road, until she became the Imperator Furiosa. That ended up as a full screenplay, with concept art and so on. And the actors, the designers, and all the crew got the screenplay of that before shooting Fury Road."
* Writer/director George Miller originally considered using "de-aging technology" in order to allow Charlize Theron to play the Furiosa character in this prequel. Ultimately, Anya Taylor-Joy was announced to play the role in 2020. 
* Director George Miller shed some light on creating the new villain, Dementus, as well as his thought process on hiring Chris Hemsworth for the role. "There needed to be an element of charisma" to this character, Miller said, "There has to be a spontaneity and a darkness to it." So Hemsworth took inspiration from dictators throughout history. Miller also talked about how he had a tough time finding the right actor to play Dementus, before having a "far reaching and multi-leveled" conversation with Hemsworth which convinced him the guy was right for the job. By the sound of it, Miller wasn't pressuring Hemsworth to take the role, nor was Hemsworth over-eager to take it, the opportunity simply felt right to both of them. "In the process, the characters emerged" Miller explained. 
* Chris Hemsworth, praised the movie's smooth production process: "I've never been on a set that felt both intimidating, loud, noisy, exhausting, and yet completely safe and in control." 
* The film features a younger Immortan Joe in addition to a younger Furiosa. 
* Lachy Hulme lobbied George Miller to have him be the one to step in as Immortan Joe, as he wanted to honor Hugh Keays-Byrne's portrayal of the character, and also knew he could replicate Hugh's voice and eye acting for Joe. Ultimately, Miller agreed to cast him. 
* At 148 minutes (2 hrs 28 mins), this is the longest Mad Max film to date. 
* On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Chris Hemsworth noted that the film was one of the best experiences of his career. 
* When asked about what was the toughest and the most unexpected things she faced on set, Anya Taylor Joy deflected the question with a surprising answer, "next question, sorry. Talk to me in 20 years. Talk to me in 20 years." 
* Anya Taylor-Joy only has about 30 lines of dialogue in the film. Speaking to the New York Times, Taylor-Joy said that she would often spend months on set without having spoken one line, explaining, "I've never been more alone than making that movie. I don't want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard. I do want to 100% preface this by saying I love George and if you're going to do something like this, you want to be in the hands of someone like George Miller. But he had a very, very strict idea of what Furiosa's war face looked like, and that only allowed me my eyes for a large portion of the movie. It was very much 'mouth closed, no emotion, speak with your eyes.' That's it, that's all you have." She added, "there's one scream in that movie, and I am not joking when I tell you that I fought for that scream for 3 months. With George it's a long game." 
* George Miller and Mahiro Maeda were at one point developing an anime-style prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) titled "The Peach" that would be produced concurrently, but it was scrapped when Fury Road was delayed. Some of Maeda's concept art for the project featured a teddy bear, and the bear was later incorporated into Dementus' character. 
* At the Cannes Film Festival, it received a 7-minute standing ovation. 
* Director George Miller revealed the reason for Furiosa having 30 lines of dialogue was simple, for him movies should be fast. He believes that dialogue slows them down. 
* Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was previously attached to star in the movie. 
* Furiosa was planned to have longer, flowing hair in Fury Road before Charlize Theron requested she shave her head bald for the role instead. This movie has Anya Taylor-Joy portray Furiosa with a longer hairstyle for at least part of the film's events before she shaves her head. 
* The souped-up hot rod 1934 Chevrolet Master Coupe 5 driven by Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) can be seen in the first trailer. 
* Many of the stunts Anya Taylor Joey did herself, her Elle profile confirmed that she was so good at stunts that oftentimes director George Miller would confuse her with her stunt double while they were filming. At a press conference for the film, Anya herself expressed confusion and delighted about how not dead she was on set, thanks in large part to the professionalism and support of the film's stunt people. An early question focused on Miller's use of practical versus digital effects as well as the fact that this has been a "big year of people talking about stunties, giving credit to those who help me you so heroic onscreen." After Miller spoke briefly about the ever evolving technology of on-screen effects, in the nine years since Fury Road, he explained the tools available to him have already changed dramatically, Anya sporting an interesting chapeau, spoke lovingly of her stunt double and the stunt department in general. "Listen, no action movie, specifically Mad Max, exists without an absolutely unbelievable stunt department. We had the incredible Guy Norris, who was a stuntman on the first ever Mad Max, leading our second unit. When George and I first had a conversation, it was important to him I was willing to throw myself into it as much as I could. But even if you're throwing yourself into it as much as you possibly can, there's someone who's pre-visualized that, who's tested that, who's taught you how to do it. My stunt double, Hayley Wright, is my sister. She has been with me consistently. We met on this movie and she's now one of my best friends in the entire world. Everything that she did, I did too. And the most important thing is that, rather than it being an environment of aggression in any way, of 'You have to do this', it was, 'I love you, I believe in you, you can do this, and I'm going to help you do this in the best possible way that you can.', God, I love these stuntpeople. They're so wonderful. And you know what? Best people on set, easy. Always." 
* The character Scabrous Scrotus, played by Josh Helman, first appeared in the video game Mad Max (2015). 
* George Miller talked about this project soon as the release of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) came out, but it took him 9 years to make and release it. Development had stalled for several years due to backend compensation disputes between Miller and Warner Bros. over Fury Road, which were eventually settled. 
* Nathan Jones, Angus Sampson and John Howard return as respectfully, Rictus Erectus, the Organic Mechanic and the People Eater. 
* When asked about a future installment, George Miller smiled and commented: "I'll definitely wait to see how this goes before we even think about it." 
* Alyla Browne was eyed for the "Furiosa" role extremely early on in the film's development process by George Miller. Between takes while shooting "Three Thousand Years of Longing" in late 2020, "in an old mental asylum of all places," she notes, Browne began doing the middle splits, where both legs are stretched out to the side to create a 180 angle (or as near as possible to it). "I used to do gymnastics, and was bored," she says. The master "Mad Max" filmmaker was watching and, she recalls, told her, "Wow, that's strange, you remind me of a young Furiosa." As it happens, Browne's mom had already foreseen the future, telling her daughter that she really hoped she'd get the "Three Thousand" years gig as "George is doing this new thing called 'Furiosa' and there might be a kid role in that." She was bang on the money. But it wasn't until a year later that Browne got on a Zoom with Miller, who offered her the part almost immediately. "He has a very visual brain, so he probably visualizes each actor in that character before he says they've been cast," she says. "In his head, they are the character." By mid-2022, Browne was out shooting on the scorched post-apocalyptic "Mad Max"-y wastelands of Australia's outback, sharing scenes with Chris Hemsworth as a young girl snatched by a biker horde and performing various stunts (including a fall down a rock face). It's no small role. "There are five parts to it, and I'm in the first two," she notes (although she would have happily signed up even it was "just a scene or two," which was her initial expectation). "I actually love things that are post-apocalyptic, and I'm in one of the biggest, coolest post-apocalyptic films in the world which is incredible," she says, admitting that, despite its R rating, she has actually seen "Furiosa" ("I'm in it, so I'm allowed!"). She's also seen its predecessor, "Fury Road," and adores something else that is distinctly un-family friendly, "The Last of Us." Browne is even trying to develop her own post-apocalyptic project, ideally one with horses ("I'd be in any kind of horse film, and if there is no horse film for me, then I'll just make my own"). 
* Taking over from the South African Charlize Theron, Anya Taylor Joy is an American Argentine British woman playing the Australian lead role. 
* The trailers and posters featured the slogan "From mastermind George Miller," continuing a recent trend in film and TV promotion:
** The Suicide Squad (2021) - "From the horribly beautiful mind of James Gunn."
** Wednesday (2022) - "From the mind/imagination of Tim Burton."
** Argylle (2024) - "From the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn."
* Producer Doug Mitchell jumped into clarify the high level of risk involved in making the film. "The other aspect of what this film represents is that every day we all wake up, especially George, with the reality that we could injure somebody, or kill somebody. The stunt department, as talented as they all are, isn't just there to madly do something. This is broken down from the get-go, and it has a tremendous amount of infrastructure underneath it. There were 264 women and men on that stunt department. One of the sequences took 79 days to shoot. Every day, you're subjected to bad weather, covid, and exhaustion. Our one priority, led by George, is not to injure anybody. The second is to make the film that we enjoyed." Anya Taylor Joy commented: "it doesn't make any sense how safe this film was." 
* Tom Hardy's stunt double from both Fury Road and The Revenant, Jacob Tomuri appears briefly as Max. Tomuri is also the stunt sequence coordinator of the film. 
== Goofs ==
Category:Trivia facts