Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy see Furiosa as a big and bold cautionary tale

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is getting rave reviews and a long standing ovation at Cannes but, for stars Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy, it’s so much more.

Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy have kept mementos of their months filming Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga in Australia.

The pair jokingly banter, however, as to how they came to procure their souvenirs.

“I don’t know if I should admit it,” Hemsworth tells Insider.

“I didn’t steal but I definitely said, ‘this is coming with me’. I took a motorbike, the motorbike I had in the film. It had a radial aeroplane engine as its drive mechanism in the bike.”

Taylor-Joy keeps her keepsakes at home.

“I felt very lucky, I got things given to me by the crew so I didn’t steal it,” she smiles, looking at Hemsworth.

Chris Hemsworth kept the motorbike he had in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

“I got given one of my (prosthetic) arms, which I really appreciated. And I got given a prop that was something that I really was excited to be in the film that didn’t end up being in it, which was Chris’s tongue. So I have that in my house in a plastic box and it is awesome.”

She added excitedly: “I keep a lot of things from my films. My house looks a bit like a house of horrors and I like it that way. It’s so gross looking and I love it.”

Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky after the screening of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15. Picture: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP

Hemsworth regrets not taking more, to be fair.

“I don’t know why I didn’t take the teddy bear,” he says, referring to a small plush toy his character carries throughout the film.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road that starred Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy. Premiering at the Cannes International Film Festival to a seven-minute standing ovation this week, it comes 45 years after director George Miller released the first of the Mad Max films that starred Mel Gibson in the title role.

It is the fifth film in the franchise.

Reviews out of Cannes have been strongly positive, with the top critics in the world lauding it yet another blockbuster success for Academy Award-winner Miller.

“Everybody that I know is dealing with some level of anxiety in order to be able to live a day to day life,” says Taylor-Joy, known perhaps best for her lead role in The Queen’s Gambit. “We have so much information about the atrocities that are going on, but I remember the very beginning of right before, I think I’d just accepted the role, George asked me to justify why we were making this film. He said, ‘why should we make it? What’s the point?’ And for me, it is a cautionary tale.

“It really is what the world would look like if we keep going the way that we’re going and you can only just hope that the powers that be are listening it.”

Director George Miller with Anya Taylor-Joy during a media call in Sydney. Picture: NCA NewsWire

Hemsworth, too, thought of the world today verses the brutal post-apocalyptic one portrayed by Miller in Mad Max.

“What’s pretty remarkable about what George has done is similar to, say, Ridley Scott with Blade Runner how where 30 or 40 years ago to be quite accurate in the potentiality of what is to come,” the Byron Bay-based superstar says.

“Here we are talking about AI, and so one of the things that Ridley Scott in Blade Runner, and a bit like with the wasteland 45 years ago when George made the first film (Mad Max), it was about, ‘what are we going to be fighting over?’ We’ve burnt the sky and the land has gone to rubbish, and water and survival and the brutal nature due to all the mistakes we’ve made. I find it quite remarkable looking back and going, ‘wow, they had it pegged’.”

Furiosa is a brave and bold move for both Hemsworth and Taylor-Joy, and for similar but different reasons.

For Hemsworth, it is a huge transition in how he will be perceived as an actor as he takes on the character of baddie Dementus. For Taylor-Joy, the role of Furiosa commands great physicality in a way her previous jobs perhaps haven’t.

“I’m going to say I think you (Hemsworth) taking a swing in terms of how big Dementus was and also playing the villain, you’ve been the hero, and I think you were really brave in stepping into that, sort of. He has his reasons but he is clearly the bad guy.”

Chris Hemsworth as “the bad guy”, Dementus.

Of Taylor-Joy, Hemsworth said: “I think you’re incredibly brave for many reasons. Joining any franchise and stepping into the shoes of an iconic character is a massive undertaking and what I was so impressed by was Anya’s commitment, the passion, the dedication, the incredibly furious protective nature around who this character was.

“I haven’t seen that before to that extent, and to pay or give the honour and thanks to what had come before but also make it her own was wild.”

Changing their look physically wasn’t difficult at all. Taylor-Joy actually wanted to shave her long white blonde hair for the role. Miller wouldn’t let her.

“I was desperate to. I was so ready. And then he saw me and the gentle soul that he is, he was like, ‘no, it’s too beautiful. We can’t do it’. George wouldn’t let me shave it. Just the artistry in putting that bald cap on, it was five hours in the morning and just exceptional work,” she says.

“There’s an interesting relationship that women particularly have with their hair, where it’s sort of this sign of fertility. Sometimes it’s seen as something that isn’t owned by you and I loved the idea of being able to just get rid of something that other people thought was beautiful and just be like, this is me.”

Spoiler alert: there’s a scene in Furiosa where Hemsworth’s Dementus’ nipple piercings are ripped out, blood dripping down his torso. There has been a lot said about the handsome actor’s transformation for the film – his crooked prosthetic nose, ratty hair, bucked teeth and weathered skin – but it is this scene that really highlights the juxtaposition of beloved Marvel superhero Thor to big screen villain that could be a game changer for him.

“There’s a fair amount of restrictions and limitations and expectations when playing the hero and this was incredibly freeing, and to be able to kind of throw away anything that was, I guess, predictable and be able to sort of turn it on its head was the most enjoyable creative experience I’ve had,” he says.

“The whole idea of acting is to disappear behind someone else or within something else, but we often get cast according to how we appear and it is not until sort of later in your career you’re allowed to say, ‘I’m going to try something different’. And that was this for me.”

The movie was shot in various locations across NSW, including in the iconic red desert sands outside Broken Hill. It is believed it injected some $350m into the NSW economy with a crew of 3100 people and 4500 extras employed for the shoot.

Taylor-Joy, 28, did many of her own stunts, as Hemsworth did too.

“That was really important for George in general. He wanted that kind of commitment and I don’t think you can really play these characters without being involved in that way,” Taylor-Joy says.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in cinemas from Thursday, May 23.