Furiosa Director Dishes on Recasting Charlize Theron for Anya Taylor-Joy

Young Furiosa will soon face off against Chris Hemsworth’s Dr. Dementus in the highly anticipated Mad Max: Fury Road prequel. George Miller serves as the director of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which will kick off the Memorial Day weekend this May. However, as fans already know, Charlize Theron will not be reprising the role of Imperator Furiosa. Instead, the part of younger Furiosa will be portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy. And there’s a very good reason for the recasting. Miller said in an interview with Empire magazine:

“It definitely would have been Charlize had Furiosa been made before Fury Road. As time went on, I began thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we could do de-aging.’ Then I watched really masterful filmmakers like Ang Lee and Martin Scorsese, doing Gemini Man and The Irishman, and I saw that it hadn’t been licked. All you’d be watching is, ‘Look how well the technology works?’ It would not have been persuasive.”

Miller added:

“Ultimately, it’s an intuitive response. There’s an innately resolute quality in Taylor-Joy. She’s a very determined and rigorous person. She has a mystique about her. And she’d been trained young as a ballet dancer. Charlize trained young as a ballet dancer. There’s a precision to them that was needed.”

Immortan Joe and Dr. Dementus

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga director George Miller promises the prequel will be a “different animal” compared to its predecessor, Mad Max: Fury Road. However, in addition to young Furiosa (Taylor-Joy), another Fury Road character, Colonel Joe Moore, aka Immortan Joe, will appear in the upcoming prequel. And actor Lachy Hulme, who was already portraying Rizzdale Pell, begged to pull double duty as Immortan Joe, who was originally portrayed by Hugh Keays-Byrne. Hulme told Empire:

“[Miller] said, ‘I’ll probably just get a body double.’ I said, ‘Well, somebody needs to step up for Hugh [Keays-Byrne]. Someone needs to honour this great man. I can do it. I can do the voice. And it’s all in the eyes.’ He said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ I said, ‘What took you so long? You’ve finally figured out that this movie ain’t gonna make dollar one until you’ve got double Lachy Hulme in it!’”

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When it comes to describing Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Hulme details the prequel as:

And while Chris Hemsworth is best known for portraying the MCU’s mighty Thor, the actor is turning over a new leaf — quite the evil one, actually — as he goes toe-to-toe with Taylor-Joy’s young Furiosa as the wicked Dr. Dementus. Hemsworth described the warlord in another interview with Empire. Hemsworth said:

“He’s a pretty horrible individual. Through the whole film we kept coming back to, ‘This is evil, but what is the intention behind it?’ It’s not just sadistic insanity. There is a real purpose, the wheels are turning, he’s plotting and planning and ten steps ahead of everyone else. I think that’s how he sees himself [Furiosa’s father figure]. I think there’s a paternal quality and nature to the relationship in his eyes. [Furiosa] would, I’m sure, argue to her death the complete opposite.”