Chris Hemsworth leant into his Furiosa character’s commonality with dictators

Chris Hemsworth said he leant into the fact his character in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga promised people a way out of the suffering “like a lot of dictators we’ve seen through history”.

At the UK premiere of George Miller’s latest Mad Max offering, Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays a young Furiosa, wore a black bodysuit with a white ruffle from the Giambattista Valli Couture collection on the red carpet at BFI IMAX in London.

Australian actor Hemsworth, who plays warlord leader Dementus, wore a light blue grey three-piece suit, alongside director Miller in a black suit with a black and red scarf.

Hemsworth, 40, described his character as a “maniac” and a “survivalist”.

“He is a man in desperate times and a dire situation in the wasteland and fashions himself as a leader. He has a large following of bikers and presents himself as an emperor, a rock star, a marauding conqueror, all of the above,” he told the PA news agency.

“But what he promises them is a way out of the suffering, like a lot of dictators we’ve seen through history, and there’s the sort of commonality that George and I discussed there that we wanted to lean into.

“But making sure there was some humanity, make sure you had the backstory, you understood that he also suffered, came from trauma, is trying to survive.

“On paper, the character was quite layered and there was a lot of opportunity to do all the things that I was talking about.”

The Queen’s Gambit star Taylor-Joy, 28, spoke about her character in the Furiosa prequel.

“I think in terms of how she differs, you’re watching a young girl being torn away from her home, trying to figure out how to survive in this universe,” she told PA.

“And so, every single time over the 15 years that you see her, she’s reacting to something different and external stimuli that’s forcing her into somebody that you recognise more often.”

Speaking about her on-set experience, Taylor-Joy added: “I still don’t have my driver’s licence so it was everything in a car first, than a motorbike, and then just being physically strong enough to do the stunts again and again and again.”

The film will be released in the UK on May 24.