Chris Hemsworth and George Miller on the making of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga | 7.30

George Miller Chris Hemsworth welcome to 7:30 and thank you for this transporting Glory of a film that you've given us the fifth Story in the Mad Max series a simple question first of all what's furiosa about well it's it's on the surface it's an odyssey it's someone who's taken from her home uh in in a dystopian world but she's taken from a home called the green place and um from the age of 10 all the way through to 28 it's a story about her trying to get back home in this in this world called the Wasteland and um so that's so it's an odyssey it's pretty obvious that a story told over and over again throughout all cultures and all time but this is our version of it and um and I hope along the way it's about you know the way as as as the as as the history man says at the beginning um as the world Falls around us how must we Brave its cruelties and that and I think that's falls into alige which is the main reason I keep keep coming back to these stories because aligre is very seductive Chris just tell us about your character dementus he's a complicated individual um he's he's uh he's a product of the Wasteland of this uh vicious violent harsh landscape and certainly has suffered himself and now through his um through his actions like most individuals in that space it's it's it's brutal due to NE necessity due to the survival um there's no planning for a year from now a month from now it's or a week it's how do I get through today and so um what most of them resort to is the brutal force and and kill or be killed and uh rule with an Iron Fist and he's a um he's the leader of a a large biker horde very nomatic um uh group of individuals um who mored from place to place and this is his his attempt at sort of domination and and um and control and massing a sort of army of followers with him I read George that you originally didn't know who was going to play dementus you took a meeting with Chris what is it that you saw in that meeting that told you well you never know who who will play anybody really or how they'll fit it's it's all Theory um but you know obviously I knew of Chris's work but we met and uh we had this conversation the first time we met and it it wasn't that long it was about an hour and a half and through the conversation I just realized I'm sorry to say this in front of you but you he's a person of many dimensions and um and and each one really took me back I mean and uh my I thought we we we talked about the World At Large we talked about work and the process of work how he comes to the work how he came to to be doing the things that he does and uh and you know even to some degree I think about family Me Anyway by the time I I thought you know the the meeting was over I thought oh the the the vend diagram of the character and Chris has some overlap I think then you read the screenplay and the your response to the screenplay really really confirmed that and so we started on the film together and then I had the experience of of working with you and uh all the way through the process during that uncertain Beginnings that you always have no one knows what's going to happen as I said it's all Theory and then becomes more concrete and then I've spent uh even though the shooting took I guess just over six months the editing took a year I spent a year with not Chris but dementus the character I got to know him really well every Nuance every micro experience everything everything now I I read that in that period um in before the shoot began and then in right in the lead up to the film you felt like you hadn't completely captured who dementus was how did you get it cuz it's there in the very first frame of the film I know it's there how did you get there it's it's interesting you know I I kind of even find you know watch the film at the premiere or a film and or even watch a film years later and still discover things I wanted to try or so it's you never quite complete the discovery and and that that's part of the fun but you often have I have had a pretty strong in Instinct of who the character was and where I wanted to take it from the first read or the first couple of reads by the time we started shooting I'd had this script in my lap for two years and so plenty of time to sort of ruminate and think about it and and even in the rehearsal process you know we were continually talking about the scenes and the car and about two weeks out I I really felt exactly what you were saying which is I don't quite know where I want to head with this I have a bunch of ideas and they're sort of percolating and they're trying to get along and so on and and um but there was this sort of conflict and George suggested you know journaling and writing in character and which I hadn't done before and and I went home that night and um woke up at you know 12:00 1:00 a.m. and just got this notepad just sort of penned a paper and started writing four or five pages and didn't think much of it Clos it and was in a half sleep State woke up the next morning and was really surprised about sort of what had come out and and and I showed it to George and I think what we both connected with was a lot of it was about who who he was prior to where we see him in the film and what experiences birthed this individual and what kind of suffering had he um endured and and survived through and and that had transformed him emotionally and physically into what we see the story gives us a bit of that but not not a lot so you you filled in the rest yeah and I think it that was what was really nice and you know it was allowing there to be ambiguity and and and questions raised or offered up to Spur conversation from an audience and anytime you know I kind of would like oh we should articulate and say that George is like it's the the less is more little hints of it and let people discover that and interpret it themselves and that was a wonderful lesson uh in working with George was just about um you know when and where and how much too of up as far as ideas go and representations of ideas and characters now you had um fallen in love with the idea of Mad Max seeing Fury Road I understand if that's correct what is it what what was the the draw for you why did you want to be there I look as as an Australian as a um an Australian actor I think to be a part of a a George Miller film a Mad Max film was always a dream come true Fury Road was I had seen in London and and it was the first time in years and i' you know had shot Thor and a number of other films every time I'd go and see a film I would look and ey I wonder how they shot this or what the camera angles were or the music and be aware of the sort of technicalities of it this the first time in years that I was really immersed in the experience and felt like an audience member again and there was a purity to that and I called my agent and I said I have to work with George in some way just I'll do anything what if if something comes up uh and then fortunate enough um probably a couple years years later that this this this script came about so so we've talked about the um uh the intensity a little bit about the intensity of your character and his background but of course we're also on Set uh with these mass of uh vehicles and stunt operatives and a huge team and a vast location what is how do you bring people to Performance in the middle of all that activity well um W with with difficulty with with with with with the process that you have to kind of adjust to whatever the story is and the circumstances that you're working on so I think it's going back to to making sure that everybody has very clear and cohesive shared organizing ideas everybody's working basically to the same principles and that applies to cast so that there's a deeper understanding of how the characters emerge and more importantly how they interact I mean the so and and and certainly it's with the actors making sure that you're working with actors and they understand how everyone's working together it's really important to work with actors who are very collaborative because it's uh the collective effort is always greater than the individual and um so there's that and that same thing happens with the crew it's um you know always been interested in how really great teams of people work together just you can't help it if you if you're making films and so I've been very interested how say really good sporting teams were together from our medical days had really great surgical teams work together and there's a lot in common and I think in Australia without going on too long I think in Australia one of the thing that that sort of is in the flavor of our work is it we we there's a very relaxed discipline nonh hierarchical so that there's everybody sort of Senses what everyone else is doing and it sort of works in a kind of Harmony uh and and that's what you try to get on your set Chris I wanted to ask you about the stunts because they are obviously what we were partly talking about there they are phenomenal it's it's gripping but it's also beautiful at the same time you come from action movies you understand how action movies work together how was this different if it was in relation to the stunts yeah um I think I've yeah I've done a lot of films in the action space and sometimes often it can feel like it's spectacle for the sake of the spectacle whereas I think what George is doing everything is informing the story it's supporting the character's Journey The Arc it has has a reason it's not just for you know visual sort of Aesthetics and so I found the stuns were very very character driven and motivated and it was much easier to sort of be immersed in that and and um and not just think okay it's I'm doing this I'm driving here it was about well my character wants X Y and Z and this is where this is happening this is my emotional state at this point so it was a lot more laid into it than anything previously I had done in the action space and you really drove that Chariot that's not a plot spoiler everyone seen it in the trailer yeah yeah there was a few that was that that actual motorbike had a radial engine from an airplane in it and I think there were only two or three of them made um and it's yeah it wasn't the funnest thing to drive it wasn't the most practical uh instrument but it was it looked pretty cool um now I know that the um the character the furiosa character obviously she's brilliantly played by Anna Taylor Joy her intensity on screen is is just just magnificent um you wrote that backstory I understand when you were directing Fury or creating Fury Road um did you always intend furiosa to be its own film ye yes if contingent on Fury Road working and getting enough traction that was the intention uh we also which happily it did yeah well ran to be seen but so so oh Fury Ro yes I be you pardon and so um so we so we said okay we'll we'll uh you know we'll go ahead and do it uh meantime we were still sorting things out with a studio which was pretty dysfunctional when we made Fury Road it's the complete opposite now they they're very they've been amazing uh very very supportive and and of the film making process and and and kind of trusted us to do the work and um and and we ended up with with with Fury Road Fury Osa it was a it was a difficult film to make just logistically the usual things with big films like this making sure that everyone safe at every level of the thing dealing with weather and of course Co and stuff and eventually we're here today having just finished the film a week ago which is amazing so it's it's very it's extremely fresh Chris just referred to the fact you know of course the the desire of an actor to be in a George Miller film it's always weird having people talk about you in the third person um but the question I wanted to ask about that is in what way is Mad Max uniquely Australian well it's oh if it is it is I I I I'm happy to say that um the first Mad Max I was you know I was very interested in in the language of Cinema that's how I first came to to to movies and I was one of those whose who recognized or saw that the syntax of of movies was basically defined in the silent era so I was always interested in the staple of kinetic Cinema action movies Buster Keaton you know and and and and the rest of them haral Lloyd and whatever and following that through that's what got me into into that um but but but the time it came to do the first Mad Max it rose out of the culture I understood I didn't understand what I was doing at the time but when it went to Japan it was seen as a Samurai movie and so on and so when it went with the French saw it as a Western on Wheels and suddenly I realized oh we've tapped into a pretty pretty Universal archetypes here and hence I got into Joseph Campell mythology and so on I'm still processing all of that what makes me so pleased about this movie and pleas we never discussed accent but you decided to do it in the Australian accent the an accent that was familiar from your grandfather is that correct yeah yeah I was listening to I I didn't want to do a sort of contemporary Australian accent uh but I but it needed to be Australian and so I was looking to a lot of um kind of interviews back in it sort of 70s 80s and it was a slight different sort of tone and nasality to things and and then my that's dementi in the room right now that just gave me and then my my grandpa um used to you know hello how's it going good had this real kind of kind of there was something fun and joyful about it but when that with with with the right to the Cadence it could also be a little aggressive and not that he was an aggressive man but I wanted there to be um something a little piercing and and and and and different but also familiar but not specific to a time period so I was a set of a creation uh um but and a few different sort of influences and and how did you how did you find it you you were listening to to news news broadcast yeah yeah just interviews and broadcasts and older films and um I remember listening to sort of the horse race you know commentators coming around the B and there was and that kind of stuck in my head um it was I don't know there was a gathering of a lot of different influences um but my grandfather was probably the my brother's here and they go that's that's Keith but it came out like on day one it was there and the interesting thing about it was that way back in the late 70s the American release the American English-speaking American version was dubbed with into American accents and much to our shame Mel Gibson who was born in America was spoken his voice was spoken by someone else huis Burns who played the toe cutter from the royal Shakespeare company he was speaking with the southern American accent all these years later there was never any question of someone of using the Australian accent so what what's changed what's uh what's allowed that c the supremacy culture it's uh people are aware of of you know when I first went to America I think other people in 19 1976 people were surprised when I said we we uh I came from Australia they were surprised we spoke English they they they mix us up with austrians yeah and and and uh so they were surprised oh you speak English and uh and and that's what what it was back then since then in the 80s we we had of course the crocodile dundes so many of our TV shows and and and and and most importantly our actors and filmmakers who went over there had to adjust their accents to American accents and uh and now they you you you hear them all talking with Australian accents in fact people who are asking for us to to do things with Australian accents that that's 40 Years of cultural Evolution and I think it's one of the functions of our own stories going out somewhere so just to go back to your original question you know this film is UN unmistakably Australian arising something uh that's Universal in uh basically tapping into the universality let's say of all storytelling but with a specific Australian bent on it and do you as well as the accent do you feel the Australian the kind of the wit the vibe as being Australian I do that there's a um there's there is a wit there is a sort of sarcasm a sort of self-deprecation to the language and the sort of individual sort of talking and and um but but but there's also something in incredibly unique the first thing that struck me when I read the script was there was a sort of poetry to the language and and a sort of Rhythm there that felt again and unlike anything you know it didn't feel American didn't feel English didn't feel Australian there was a sort of a um you know like same way when you read sort of Shakespeare and it's like oh it's English but it's not the English I know you know there was something different and that was I don't know how you guys came up with that I never asked you but there is a sort of a poetic sort of nature to to the the this the verbage and the language in the film I don't want to ask about the the future because where the present is much too important at the moment but you have said that you are most proud of your performance in dementus of all the work that you've done would you like to stay inside this wonderful ongoing saga don't do him again no no he dies oh no he hasn't died no he's not dead I mean I think I was I was I was I was proud's a funny word I I was um I was incredibly grateful for the experience it was the most enjoyable experience of of my career you know how people how it's received is up to you know everybody else but my experience was um creatively just so much fun working with George and and the opportunity and uh to have such detail and depth within the script and um and you know at every corner we're corner and every turn we're able to sort of say oh we could go this way what if we tried this and there was sort of no limitations with it and I hadn't experienced that before so that I would like to hang on to and do somewhere and you had your own horde of motorbike Riders my hord of motorbike Riders one of the great joys of the world right that was an Eclectic group of people too it was a fun fun gang without taking too much time uh I have you ever seen a picture there's a picture that show someone showed me Of The Murder By Riders from the first Mad Max and um and they they had a dog called Wonder Dog and it was a dog that rode with the the bike again appears in the first Mad Max and in the picture there's several of these the these they were called the Vigilante Biker Group they were long-haired often bearded were basically fun Riders they weren't like a criminal biker gang and in the back of the picture there's there was a guy called Craig hensworth his dad and the have you seen the picture no I haven't even SE he's he's there he's got a smile he's got long hair and he's got a smile and I swear he looks exactly like you with long hair and he he was one of the people who looked after Wonder Dog this amazing dog that only would hang out with bikers and go follow anyone home anyone of the Biker Group would ride on the back of the bike and your father uh wasn't in the film because he was already I don't know if he was just out of University doing social work but he couldn't do the film but he knew so he knew all that group and all those guys and yeah just finally I just wanted to ask this because I'll show you thect it was it was in the stars but finally I just I want to ask this question just about the about Mad Max as a phenomenon because I've heard you talk about film being about giving and taking from the Zeitgeist how do you have a Zeitgeist that endures over decades um because on the one hand even though there's rapid change humankind is always changing it's almost to the point where we can barely get grasp it and there's bewilderment um but there's some things that are constant there's some Behavior patterns which be because we're we're basically evolved uh over probably let's say 150,000 years into the modern version of human of the human and and those patterns are constant across all time and and and place I mean and um so they're very very interesting stories to tell because they're not only about some dystopian future they basically refer to past behaviors everything that you see in the film is not only something you can find variations of in history but you also find them in the news in in news today and so um so they are a way of both reflecting on who we were I think and probably inviting conversation about who we are and maybe where we're going that's the function of aligre and that's all all stories even a really great news story has a has an Al allegorical quality a great joke spoken by told by some an anecdote or or stand up comedian has a level of allegory that's the one one of the re one of the ways we identify them every fairy stale fa fairy tale every Fable every biblical story every holy book story every every folklore has that same ingredient it's not mean the person who articulated this by father the best was Joseph Campbell but that's the function of story we we we we we basically share our experiences and trying to make sense of it through story this is just another variation on that thank you for creating a wonderful story George Miller will be in your stories for as as long as long as we possibly can and Chris hemworth for a truly magnetic fascinating wonderful to watch performance it was a real Joy thank you thank you very much

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 77,054

Keywords: abc news, australian news, abc news indepth, documentaries, long-form journalism, abc 730, 730, chris hemsworth, george miller, furiosa, mad max, movies, entertainment, cinema

Id: HjTleyQJJYo

Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2024