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When you first talked to
George Miller about Max Max:
Fury Road, what drew you
to the project and what
resonated with
you about your character,
Furiosa?
CHARLIZETHERON:
Well, the whole thing was
pretty secret. There was a
script, but it was really just a
long storyboard. George and I
had several conversations, and he
communicated what he wanted to do
with Furiosa, I think, later on – not necessarily
even in this movie. So there was a lot of
backstory that he introduced me to, and a real
intrigue in what he wanted to do with the film,
which felt really honest.
Every time you make a film with somebody,
there is this moment where you have to kind of
just jump off the cliff with them. But, in this case,
I feel like we were blindfolded, because there
was very little to go by, except for George as a
filmmaker, which is, I think, why we all signed up.
So, for me, what happened with Furiosa was
that there was a grain that was really thought out,
but the scenes were continuously developing
over the years as this project came together. And
I think it all happened for a reason, because, at
the end of the day, we ended up with a character
that I felt was very unique, and somewhat
brutally honest. It was interesting for me to play
in this world, in a genre where a character’s flaws
are celebrated.
Once you’d wrapped your mind around this
character, did you feel an ownership of her,
and did George welcome your collaboration?
Yeah. I think I had ownership
because George allowed me to
have ownership,
you know?
As an actor, you can’t just
kind of take it. I think it’s
really up to the filmmaker
to invite you into that, and
George is absolutely fantastic
and encouraging
of collaboration.
I think he really wanted that for
all of us. For me as an actor, that’s
always very important.
He just loves actors, and really loves the
process. I mean, we spent a lot of time sitting
down one-on-one, or with the group, and just
really talking. You can just see in his eyes when
something kind of sparks an interest.
He grabs a lot of it, and that’s really nice, to
work with a director who values actors that
way.
Can you talk about who Furiosa
is, where she starts out, and your
thoughts on the journey she takes
in the film?
Well, when you watch the movie,
you understand certain things about
her, but the film is so sparse, and
that’s the beauty of it because she
really is an enigma. She starts the film
in overdrive, helping or kidnapping –
we’re not quite sure – these brides of
a dictator, Immortan Joe. She basically
takes off in one of the trucks, and you
don’t quite know whether these girls can
trust her, or what she’s planning to do
with them. You notice that she’s looking a lot like
these Warboys chasing her, and that she’s got
an arm missing, and has a mechanical arm. She
looks like a boy, but she’s not. I think you can tell
that there’s a look of desperate revenge on her
face. And I loved all of that.
Her journey starts off that way, and then,
obviously, gets derailed when she runs into Max,
and she all of a sudden is kind of captured by
him. But then, he’s also captured by her. They’re
somewhat stuck with each other on this journey
to find hope – a journey of hope in a place where
there really is no hope.
But she’s this kind of rogue survivor; that’s
what she has always been. I think she’s lived a
life filled with waiting for the perfect moment
to grab her revenge. And I know, because of
George telling me, that she was kidnapped to
perform certain duties that she could not deliver
on, and thus she was discarded in quite a terrible
way. We don’t see any of that in the movie, but
I think she carries a lot of that emotion with
her – of being stolen and then discarded – and is
just trying to find a way to rectify that for herself,
emotionally.
Some members of this generation are going
to be meeting Mad Max for the first time in
this film, as played byTom Hardy. Can you talk
about working withTom and what you think
he brings to this role?
CharlizeTheron's character manages to upstage the titular
hero as the driving force of Mad Max: Fury Road.
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20 SEPTEMBER 2015