Anya Taylor-Joy's Comments on Making Furiosa Are Unsettling Fans

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Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Anya Taylor-Joy is opening up about her experience filming Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and sharing some cryptic messages that are unsettling fans.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Taylor-Joy claimed she has “never been more alone” than during the six and a half months she spent filming Furiosa in Australia, adding: “I don’t want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard.”

When asked to clarify what she meant by that last sentence, instead of listing general hurdles, Taylor-Joy shut down the question after thinking about it for a few seconds, adding: “Next question, sorry. Talk to me in 20 years.”

Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa in 2024's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Anya Taylor-Joy as FURIOSA in 2024's FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA

Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa in 2024's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Taylor-Joy, who filmed Furiosa in 2022, also added that she “knew I was going to need the two years that it took for the movie to come out to deal with it.”

Speaking to Variety recently, Taylor-Joy also admitted she can’t bring herself to watch the final cut of the moving, adding: “Within the first three minutes, I’m crying. And afterward, I cannot speak. I found it very traumatizing to watch.”

Of course, Taylor-Joy’s comments are being dissected on the internet, with fans and critics alike coming to all sorts of conclusions.


Related: Anya Taylor-Joy Skipped the Met Gala But Still Nailed the Theme


Furiosa, much like its predecessor, Mad Max: Fury Road, which starred Charlie Theron in the role Taylor-Joy now brings to life, was emotionally and physically taxing for Taylor-Joy. Since the character is known as solitary, the actors often found themselves isolated on set, which made the loneliness permeate beyond the screen.

Back in 2020, Theron told the New York Times that she felt “a mixture of extreme joy that we achieved what we did, and I also get a little bit of a hole in my stomach,” adding that “there’s a level of ‘the body remembers’ trauma related to the shooting of this film that’s still there for me.”

Theron also had widely publicized problems with her costar, Tom Hardy, but George Miller, the director of both films, denied such problems existed on the set of Furiosa in an interview with The Telegraph. (Taylor-Joy stars alongside Chris Hemsworth in Furiosa.)

Charlize Theron as Furiosa in 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road.

Charlize Theron as FURIOSA in 2015's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD.

Charlize Theron as Furiosa in 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road.
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

“This is the wasteland, and any outbreak of emotion is punished by death,” Taylor-Joy told Variety. “Any empathy is punished by death — any kindness, really. It all made sense to me. I think the restrictions that were placed on me by George did create a radiation of the character because she is being suppressed continuously throughout the film.”

However, the actor also clarified George was nothing but welcoming and understanding of her on set to the Times. “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,” she said. “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,” Taylor-Joy added. Coincidentally, the film recently went viral after it was revealed the actor only had 30 lines of dialogue in its almost two-and-a-half-hour run.


Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue


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