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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, with Anya Taylor-Joy stepping into the iconically badass role made famous by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, roars into theaters this weekend. Culture editor Alex Pappademas talked to GQ’s senior staff writer Gabriella Paiella about what we can expect from the year’s most anticipated sequel.
Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Alex Pappademas: Hi Gaby! So: You have seen Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and I have not yet. Without spoiling anything, please tell me everything!
But, specifically, tell me this: One thing I loved about Mad Max: Fury Road, the previous Mad Max film, is that it gives us just enough world-building without going overboard. George Miller seemed to understand that when you’re fleshing out a sci-fi reality, less is usually more—once we’ve heard someone mention “The Bullet Farm,” we don’t need to see it, because just knowing these characters commute to and from a place called “The Bullet Farm” tells you a lot about what this world is like.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is obviously meant to fill in the backstory of a character we met in the first film, so by definition it’s going to be more expository. Does it feel like a different kind of movie?
Gabriella Paiella: Spoiler: We’re going to see the Bullet Farm.
I also loved the restrained world-building in Fury Road. (If we can legally use the word restrained in a 50-mile vicinity of anything Mad Max–related.) We still get the explosive car chases that melt your face off and the horrible dudes in questionable outfits overrunning the Wasteland in Furiosa, but it’s for sure more expository, and you do see so much more of their world than in the first one—you’re not contained to the triangle route. And you get the explanations for why some of the things in Fury Road are the way they are. But you’re still not getting, say, Immortan Joe’s backstory spelled out.
