Why is Charlize Theron not in Furiosa?

Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth lead the latest Mad Max film, Furiosa.

Directed by George Miller, Furiosa serves as a prequel which takes place 20 years before events in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. It is the fifth instalment in the franchise overall, which began with the original Mad Max back in 1979.

In this prequel, Anya Taylor-Joy plays the role of Furiosa, who was portrayed by Charlize Theron in Fury Road. Other cast members include Alyla Browne, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, Nathan Jones, and Josh Helman.

Why does Charlize Theron not star in Furiosa?

While you might think Charlize Theron’s return would be ruled out on the grounds that Furiosa is a prequel set 20 years prior to Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller’s original plan was to have her reprise her role.

That idea, however, was taken off the table because Miller wasn’t happy with the current state of anti-aging technology, as seen in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.

Speaking to ComicBook about the inception of Furiosa, Miller said: “So, everyone read a script a few years ago, the concept art and everything, and everyone read the screenplay in order to do Fury Road, not just the actors but everybody.

Charlize Theron CREDIT: Heinz-Peter Bader/Getty Images

“[Charlize] read it about six months before, and she said ‘We’ve got to do this first.’ I said, Charlize, we’ve been trying to do this movie for almost a decade and we’re all prepared to do this one. We have to do it, but she was very excited about it.”

Miller explained that the time between doing Fury Road and Furiosa caused the problem, adding: “My intention was that we do it, we do it next. But then we’ve now gone through the third parent company of Warner Bros. – there’s about four different regimes. That settled down by the time we got to actually do Furiosa, but the best part of a decade had gone by. And then I thought, ‘OK, we could still do it with Charlize.’

“Then I saw these other movies like The Irishman, where they made people younger and particularly I saw Gemini Man. I was looking at the technology; I wasn’t looking at performance. I thought, ‘We can’t do it.’”

What else has Anya Taylor-Joy starred in?

Before Furiosa, Anya Taylor-Joy is best known for starring in 2015’s The Witch, Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit and Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho.

She reunited with director Robert Eggers on 2022’s The Northman, and voiced Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. If you’re a fan of Peaky Blinders, she also played Gina Gray in the show’s fifth and sixth seasons.

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