Photo: Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images
Ninety percent of the experience of watching the Mad Max films is anxiously wondering to yourself, How is everybody not dead? Furiosa is no different, packed with endlessly complex, immaculately rendered action sequences, many of them featuring Anya Taylor-Joy herself (her recent Elle profile confirmed that the actor was so good at stunts that oftentimes directer George Miller would confuse her with her stunt double while they were filming). At the press conference for the film, Taylor-Joy herself expressed confusion and delight about how not dead she was on set, thanks in large part to the professionalism and support of the film’s stuntpeople.
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 make you so heroic onscreen.” After Miller spoke briefly about the ever-evolving technology of onscreen effects — in the nine years since Fury Road, he explained, the tools available to him have already changed dramatically — Taylor-Joy, 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,” she said.
“My stunt double, Hayley Wright, is my sister,” she added. “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.”
Producer Doug Mitchell jumped in to 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,” he said. “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.”
“It doesn’t make any sense how safe this film was,” confirmed Taylor-Joy.
Miller also revealed that he’d only finished the film two weeks ago. When asked about a future installment, he smiled. “I’ll definitely wait to see how this goes before we even think about it.”
