Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga star Chris Hemsworth has revealed how director George Miller inspired him to journal in the voice of Warlord Dementus.
“George suggested to me to journal as the character, which I hadn’t done before,” Hemsworth said in an interview with Total Film. “It was 2am one night. I was awake, and I just put pen to paper, and just started scribbling down thoughts and ideas as Dementus.”
He added, “I didn’t think much of it. I went to sleep, and woke up, and was quite shocked at what came out of me in that half-asleep state. I went into rehearsal, and showed George, and we both went, ‘That’s it. That’s the direction we’ve got to go.”
Set decades before 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Hemsworth’s Dementus engages in a power struggle within the Wasteland against a young Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme). It is during this war that Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) gets captured by Dementus’ Biker Horde and later tries to escape back home to the Green Place of Many Mothers.
Hemsworth recalled how Miller’s script attracted him due to the deeper conflicts between Furiosa and Dementus amid the trademark chaos in the Mad Max universe. “There was a great sense of continuity to what had been done before,” Hemsworth said. “But what was exciting was, with a lot of the dialogue, there was a sort of Shakespearean tone to it. It’s an epic tale. You see a real growth and change in the characters, or the demise in others. You see the environments they inhabit break down. But it has some insane action in it, as well.”
Who else stars in Furiosa?
Taylor-Joy and Hemsworth are joined by Tom Burke, Alyla Browne, Nathan Jones, Charlee Fraser, and Angus Simpson. Miller directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Nico Lathouris.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opens in theaters on May 24.
