SINGAPORE – Anya Taylor-Joy was eager to take on the title role in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga by recreating the warrior woman’s signature look.

“I really wanted to shave my head for the role,” says the 28-year-old British-American actress.

The film is a spin-off and prequel to the 2015 dystopian action movie Mad Max: Fury Road, and charts the girlhood and maturation of the character. In the 2015 film, Imperator Furiosa was played by Oscar-winning star Charlize Theron – who sported a buzz cut – and the story opens with the character already a trusted soldier and driver for the warlord Immortan Joe.

Opening in Singapore cinemas on May 22, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opens in the Wasteland, the arid landscape of a future Australia ruined by nuclear war.

Raiders arrive at the Green Place, an oasis of plenty, to kidnap a child. She is taken to meet Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the warlord who sent out the raiders. The story then follows her exploits as she grows to become the Furiosa of the 2015 film. 

Taylor-Joy was surprised when Australian film-maker George Miller – who helmed the Mad Max film franchise (1979 to present) – rejected her request to mimic the famous hairdo.

“I had such a hard time wrapping my head around the question of why Furiosa had hair for such a long time,” says the star of black comedy film The Menu (2022) and drama series The Queen’s Gambit (2020) in a Zoom interview with The Straits Times.

After a while, she realised that head-shaving was not merely a cosmetic change, but an event with a deeper significance.

“It’s the one piece of herself that she keeps for herself. She has the feeling that one day, she can make it back to the place and be the girl that she once was,” she says. The act of head-shaving would indicate a profound change in her beliefs.

As Dementus, Australian actor Hemsworth, 40, takes on a role he is not known for – that of a villain. Under a layer of prosthetics, he plays a cult leader delivering speeches that inspire his crew to give their lives on his behalf.

As is typical of 79-year-old Miller – who created the Mad Max character in the Mel Gibson film of the same name in 1979, and who has had a hand in directing and writing all five films set in the universe – the film’s lore is drawn from history.

Hemsworth and Miller studied the backgrounds of conquerors and emperors, seeing the qualities they shared.

The star of Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero movies such as Thor (2011 to 2022) and The Avengers (2012 to present) says in the same Zoom interview: “They could prey on people’s weaknesses. They say, ‘I understand and see your problems and I have a solution, and I know who’s at fault.’ There is a lot of manipulation.”

Dementus knows that to stay in power, his people need the distraction of violence.

“If you’re too busy fighting and hating someone else, you don’t have to deal with yourself and your unhappiness. They live in a brutal post-apocalyptic dystopian world where life is cheap,” he says.

The constant state of war between the tribes is the result of each one desiring the resources of the other. Dementus yearns to conquer Furiosa’s Green Place, a land where the peaceful inhabitants have become self-sufficient in food and water.

“Dementus’ tribe lives in the harshest of environments. There is no abundance of water or anything green, so there is a desperation to get to the Green Place,” Hemsworth says.

For director and co-writer Miller, historical examples of resource wars are where he draws inspiration for the Mad Max characters and stories.

The War Boys, the juvenile soldiers who follow warlord Immortan Joe (played by Australian actor Lachy Hulme), are based on real-life examples of religions built around warriors, he says. Before heading into battle, the boys go into a trance, spray silver paint on their teeth so they look like vehicle grilles and chant “witness me”.

“The War Boys believe they will go to a warrior’s paradise if they die bravely in battle. It’s an incredibly common theme in world cultures.

“The aristocracy sits atop citadels because gravity gives them a competitive advantage,” Miller tells ST in a separate Zoom interview.

He has received accolades for a diverse range of films. He won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet (2006) and has Academy Award nominations for his work in the medical drama Lorenzo’s Oil (1992) and fantasy-adventure Babe (1995), as well as Fury Road.

He says it would be a “lovely thing to do” to hand over the reins of the Mad Max franchise if it came time to do so.

“I don’t know how much more time I have to make films. I’m still very curious about making films and there are certainly other stories that I have that I want to tell.

“It would be great if someone else were prepared to take on the Mad Max stories. And that may happen. We’ll have to see,” he adds.

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opens in Singapore cinemas on May 22.