Thor: Love and Thunder actor Chris Hemsworth struggled with self-confidence when filming Furiosa since it took him a while to figure out how to portray the Mad Max antagonist. Hemsworth revealed that the script for George Miller’s prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road was the greatest he had ever read during the most recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
The Mad Max universe, which Miller created in the late 1970s, gave rise to three commercially successful films with Mel Gibson in the title character before going dormant for nearly three decades. Next, in 2015 With Fury Road, probably the strongest entry in the saga thus far, Miller transported us back to the arid wastelands of his post-apocalyptic universe. Fury Road featured Charlize Theron as Furiosa, a one-armed tough warrior who rapidly won over fans, while letting Tom Hardy portray a new iteration of the legendary character. It didn’t take long for Miller to reveal that he was writing a prequel about Furiosa, with Anya Taylor-Joy replacing the original actress to play a younger version of the character.
Hemsworth is playing a villain in the prequel, which is another reason to watch the film, even though we don’t know much about Furiosa’s plot just yet. Furiosa will provide Hemsworth the chance to delve into a different aspect of acting as he typically plays heroic roles despite having a wide range of acting abilities. The antagonist Miller created for Furiosa is also a multi-layered, nuanced character who Hemsworth acknowledges was challenging to portray.
Hemsworth said, “I just finished shooting ‘Furiosa’ with George Miller, it’s part of the ‘Mad Max’ saga, and often I get a script and I know from the first read, the second read, I know who the character is. I get an instant sort of visceral kind of feeling attached to it, ‘Okay, I got it.’ This I had read two years before I started shooting and was in awe of the script. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read, I love George Miller, but I didn’t know who this character was. We did about four weeks of rehearsals and we started digging in and diving into it, and things started coming to me. And about 2 weeks prior to shooting, something clicked. I went, ‘Oh, I think I know who it is and that’s how he moves.’” He further added, “In the build-up, and I’m talking a couple of years, I was scared out of my mind. I’m like, ‘I’m going to derail one of the most iconic franchises. I’m going to bring down Mad Max.’”