George Miller Confused Anya Taylor-Joy for Her Stunt Double ‘a Lot’ on ‘Furiosa’

Anya Taylor-Joy in “Furiosa” would give Ryan Gosling’s “The Fall Guy” a run for his money.

“Furiosa” writer/director George Miller admitted to GQ UK that while filming the sprawling “Mad Max” prequel, he sometimes got confused between Taylor-Joy and her stunt double. Turns out, Taylor-Joy did more of her own stunts than even her director realized.

More from IndieWire

• Chris Hemsworth Mistook Handprints at Chinese Theater for a Walk of Fame Star: 'Someone Told me, 'No, That's Not What This Is''

• In the Age of 'Eras,' Lady Gaga Kept the World Premiere of HBO's 'Gaga Chromatica Ball' Small

It took one scene where Furiosa (Taylor-Joy) had to climb into the front seat of a war rig through its smashed windscreen for Miller to realize just how down and dirty Taylor-Joy was going.

“I was watching it and I saw her stunt double, Hayley, and thought, ‘Gee, she looks a lot like Anya,'” Miller said. “I spoke to [second unit director and stunt coordinator] Guy [Norris] and he said, ‘That wasn’t Hayley, that was Anya.’ That happened a lot.”

“I can put my body through so much that it becomes a bit frightening when you don’t crash,” Taylor-Joy said. “I’m interested in that.”

Taylor-Joy’s co-star Chris Hemsworth recently said during a “Hot Ones” appearance that the “Furiosa” stunts had to be thoroughly rehearsed so as to not become fatal.

“In order for everyone to stay alive, it has to be rehearsed down to the last beat,” Hemsworth said. “And you have all your stunt performers go on through, all the right versions, the wrong versions, this sort of experimentation period…and then I turn up and ‘do my own stunts’, but they’ve been narrowed into a pretty safe zone, safer than they could be, there’s still a bit of a leap of faith. But a huge amount of prep required and then it’s sort of an orchestrated, controlled chaos.”

Taylor-Joy previously told The New York Times that Miller had a “very, very strict” vision for the character of Furiosa. Miller’s take was so strict, in fact, that Taylor-Joy had to take on a battle offscreen: convincing the director to let Furiosa fully unfurl with an intense scream.

“We’re animals, and there’s a point where somebody just snaps,” Taylor-Joy said. “There’s one scream in that movie, and I am not joking when I tell you that I fought for that scream for three months. I am a really strong advocate of female rage.”

She added of collaborating with the filmmaker, “With George, it’s a long game. You plant the seed day one, you leave it for a bit, then you check on it. […] I wanted to make sure that I was never insolent in any way, that it was always a conversation. At the end of the day, this is his vision. I can present everything that I have, but his word goes.”

“Furiosa” premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and will debut in theaters May 31. Read IndieWire’s interview with Miller here.

Best of IndieWire

• A History of Unsimulated Sex Scenes in 17 Cannes Films, from 'Mektoub' to 'Antichrist' to 'Caligula'

• The Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now

• Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 54 Films the Director Wants You to See

Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.