Chris Hemsworth’s road to Mad Mad: Fury Road prequel Furiosa has been a long one. The Marvel star plays Dementus in the new movie alongside Anya Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa, but he originally had his eye on another role: Max Rockatansky himself.
However, in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Hemsworth says it came up just as he was finishing work on Australian soap opera Home and Away and he couldn’t get his foot in the door. "[I] couldn't even get a call or a meeting or anything," he told the publication, adding that it was pre-Marvel in 2010 so he felt he "just hadn't done enough to warrant that" meeting.
The role went to Tom Hardy in Fury Road, and Hemsworth moved on to play a certain god of thunder in the Thor and Avengers movies. After he saw Fury Road, he was determined to work with director George Miller though and called his agent. "I was completely absorbed and taken for the adventure and the ride. I said, 'I've got to work with this guy, he's a genius.' And then, the rest is history."
Furiosa follows a younger version of Charlize Theron’s character in Fury Road as she’s taken from the Green Place of Many Mothers to a biker horde run by Hemsworth’s warlord. As they travel through the Wasteland, Furiosa finds herself at the center of a fight between two tyrants as they encounter Immortan Joe.
As for what Max has been up to during this time, he, alongside the Interceptor, makes a very quick cameo in Furiosa. Miller also told EW that he’s actually crafted a whole story about what he’s up to at this time, which he’d like to adapt. "The writers know what happened to Mad Max in that year before, and we have a whole story of that, which I would like to do sometime if I get the chance," he explained.
Furiosa is released in theaters on May 24. For more on Furiosa, check out our exclusive images from the film and Hemsworth explaining how he got into character. Check out our guide to the best action movies of all time for what else to watch.
