A Mad Max Saga Stars Talk the Benefits of the Wasteland

We talked to Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth about the positives of the Mad Max setting.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is heading to theaters later this month, and the film stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa, the role previously played by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road. The movie also stars Marvel actor Chris Hemsworth as a new character, Dr. Dementus. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with the duo, and we asked if they had anything nice to say about the Wasteland, the post-apocalyptic setting of the long-running franchise. 

“If I had to give the Wasteland a compliment, I would say, ‘You are very resourceful,'” Taylor-Joy replied. “I think we could all do with being more resourceful with our things and less wasteful.”

“Absolutely,” Hemsworth replied. “I read this book called The Comfort Crisis recently just about how, you know, we’ve been afforded such luxuries that we don’t face adversity and challenges anymore, and therefore we become weaker and softer, and the problems that aren’t really that problematic become far more dramatic and we don’t know how to handle them. So being exposed to such harshness and diversity, there’s a resilience that comes with that, and as we’re supposed to be solving problems and moving forward. Not that I want to live in the Wasteland.”

“Just to clarify,” Taylor-Joy added with a laugh. “Don’t want to go there. We’re good here.” 

What Is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga About?

You can read a description of Mad Max: Furiosa here:  “As the world fell, young Furiosa is snatched from the Green Place of Many Mothers and falls into the hands of a great Biker Horde led by the Warlord Dementus. Sweeping through the Wasteland, they come across the Citadel presided over by The Immortan Joe. While the two Tyrants war for dominance, Furiosa must survive many trials as she puts together the means to find her way home.”

In addition to Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth, the film also stars Tom Burke, Nathan Jones, Angus Sampson, and Quaden Bayles.

“When we wrote Mad Max, the task was to tell a story that was always on the run and to see how much the audience could pick up in passing,” director George Miller previously explained to The AV Club. “That was one of the tricks of Mad Max: Fury Road, that there would be references to things of where she’s from, why they’re doing things, but it was always on the run. There were very few moments of quiet. We never explained how she lost her arm. We never explain what the actual Green Place Of Many Mothers was. We never explained the workings of the Citadel. So we had the screenplay virtually complete before we shot Fury Road, and we did it because it arose out of wanting to explain to everybody who Furiosa was—to Charlize when she took on the role, and to all the actors and the designers and everybody else working on the Citadel and so on. The feeling was, gee, this is a pretty good screenplay, and then I kept saying to myself, ‘If Fury Road works, I’d really like to tell this story.'”

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is currently scheduled to be released in theaters on May 24th.