Furiosa director reveals Anya Taylor-Joy only has 30 lines of dialogue throughout the entire movie

The man behind the new Mad Max instalment featuring Anya Taylor-Joy has revealed that the star only has 30 lines of dialogue in the entire movie.

Bearing mind that each page of a script usually equates to about one minute, that's certainly not a lot of time spent talking.

But with multiple Mad Max movies under his belt, it seems like creator George Miller knows what he's doing.

The director of the new movie spoke about the project in an interview with The Telegraph, where he expressed belief that dialogue in a movie actually tends to slow down the pace of the story.

Miller claimed that movies are best enjoyed at 'high speed', which helps explain why throughout Furiosa - a two-and-a-half-hour film - Taylor-Joy only has around 30 lines.

So, what's going on for the rest of the time?

Well, Miller stressed the importance of visuals in his feature which - hopefully - make up for the lack of conversation from Taylor-Joy.

Furiosa isn't a very chatty character. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

In one scene, her character Furiosa undergoes an attack from bandits who descend from parachutes and kites - but Miller didn't want to use visual effects to make it happen.

"We had to work out how to do it for real,” he explained, “because the brain is very good at gauging physics. If the movements of those vehicles aren’t totally genuine, your audience is far less likely to buy into anything else.”

Taylor-Joy, who stars alongside Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hardy in Furiosa, wasn't put off by the lack of dialogue in the movie either - I suppose it would mean less for her to memorize, after all.

Discussing her involvement in the movie with Variety, the Queen's Gambit star recalled Miller's specific direction and how it changed her performance in the movie.

Taylor-Joy was encouraged to keep her mouth 'closed'. (RB/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)

She recalled “We’d do takes where he’d be like, ‘Do it again with your mouth closed'. He has a thing about my mouth. He thinks when my mouth is open, I look too young.”

“This is the wasteland, and any outbreak of emotion is punished by death,” Taylor-Joy continued.

“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 off the character, because she is being suppressed continuously throughout the film.”

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is set to arrive in theatres on 24 May.

Topics: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hardy, Film and TV

Emily Brown

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.