The classic 1976 movie scene that earned Anya Taylor-Joy her toughest assignment
Anya Taylor-Joy had a strange audition process for her most ambitious role.
The notion of a fourth instalment of the Mad Max franchise seemed like an impossibility for decades, given that George Miller had consistently failed to find funding after 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Although it went through one of the most difficult production processes of any modern film, Mad Max: Fury Road was released in 2015 and hailed as a masterpiece, and instantly ranked among the greatest achievements in action filmmaking in the history of the industry.
While there was no question that Miller would want to return to the Wasteland to tell another story, various disputes and lawsuits stalled the production. Miller’s intention wasn’t to bring back Tom Hardy, who had been reportedly quite difficult on set, but to tell a new story about the breakout star of Fury Road, which was Imperator Furiosa, portrayed by Charlize Theron. However, the filmmaker wanted to make Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga a prequel, which required a new actor to take over the part.
The expectations for Theron’s replacement couldn’t have been higher, and Furiosa ran into its own batch of delays when the Covid-19 pandemic prevented Miller from location scouting and auditioning actors in person. He had to audition Anya Taylor-Joy over Zoom, and he gave her a unique assignment on what to perform.
“I said to her, ‘I’d like you to do a very simple test, which is read something to camera’,” Miller recalled, “It was the speech from Network. The ‘I’m mad as hell’ speech. Apart from the brilliance of the writing, it’s a piece that can be done to camera. It doesn’t need an acting partner.”
The iconic tirade that Peter Finch’s character goes on in the beginning of the Sidney Lumet classic is one of the most iconic scenes of the ‘70s, and Miller said that he was blown away by Taylor-Joy’s rendition.
“Anya did one version, which was really good,” he said, “Then I gave her just a couple of simple notes about intention, and she just absolutely nailed [it]. I think it was done on an iPhone. I sent it to the studio. I explained why I thought she was right for the role. I said I was really happy to talk about it, but it was so persuasive that we didn’t need to talk. The studio said, ‘Tick’.”
Despite the initial friendliness, with Miller known for being very exacting about his filmmaking process, Taylor-Joy would later admit that making Furiosa was one of the most challenging ordeals of her career, and that she felt completely isolated throughout the production. Moreover, the film contained even more dangerous stunts, visual specificity, and extended shooting days than Mad Max: Fury Road did, and while stories about the making of the latter were aired in public because of the reported feuds between Miller, Theron and Hardy, there weren’t any major conflicts amongst the cast of Furiosa.
Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke have only spoken positively about one another, but have noted how intense Miller’s directing style was. Although it was not a box office hit, the film is an undersung masterpiece that will certainly be reevaluated in the next decade.
