Anya Taylor-Joy says she felt isolated while filming George Miller's "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," but won't reveal why.
The star plays the younger version of Charlize Theron's "Mad Max: Fury Road" character, Imperator Furiosa. In Miller's beloved vision of the post-apocalypse, Furiosa survived by working for a ruthless warlord, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne).
The 2024 prequel explores Furiosa's backstory before she met Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) and led a rebellion against Joe.
It's clear that the four-month shoot in Australia was hard on Taylor-Joy. In an interview with The New York Times' Kyle Buchanan, "The Witch" and "The Menu" star recalled her experience.
"I've never been more alone than making that movie," Taylor-Joy said. "I don't want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard."
Sensing that he was "skirting a sensitive issue," Buchanan asked her why she felt that way, but Taylor-Joy wouldn't explain.
"Next question, sorry," she said. "Talk to me in 20 years." Buchanan described Taylor-Joy as having "a faraway look in her eyes, as if a part of her had been left behind in that wasteland."
Taylor-Joy later noted that she cried watching an early cut of the film. "Two minutes in and I'm sobbing," Taylor-Joy said. She hinted at the root of her emotion, saying, "I adored a person that I could not protect. There were forces greater than me."
It's not the first time that actors have been put through the physical and emotional wringer while making a "Mad Max" movie.
Theron and Tom Hardy infamously clashed while making "Fury Road," with Theron even asking for on-set protection from her costar after one incident.
Buchanan's book "Blood, Sweat, and Chrome," about the 2015 film, recounts a major argument between the two stars that occurred after Hardy was three hours late to set, per Vanity Fair.
Camera operator Mark Goellnicht recalled: "She jumps out of the War Rig, and she starts swearing her head off at him, saying, 'Fine the fucking cunt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute that he's held up this crew,' and 'How disrespectful you are!'"
Theron herself also weighed in, saying, "It got to a place where it was kind of out of hand, and there was a sense that maybe sending a woman producer down could maybe equalize some of it, because I didn't feel safe."
But when it comes to "Furiosa," Taylor-Joy still cherishes her time on the unique shoot.
"I will never regret this experience, on so many different levels, but it's a very particular story to have," she explained. "There's not everyone in the world that has made a 'Mad Max' movie, and I swear to God, everyone that I've met that has, there's a look in our eyes: We know. There's an immediate kinship of like, 'OK, hey, I see you.'"
