'There's something mystical about her': George Miller hails Furiosa lead Anya Taylor-Joy

George Miller has praised the "mystical" qualities of 'Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga' actress Anya Taylor-Joy.

The 79-year-old filmmaker has helmed the post-apocalyptic action prequel flick and felt that Anya had all the right attributes to play a young Imperator Furiosa after seeing her performance in the movie 'Last Night in Soho'.

Speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday (08.04.24), George said: "There's something mystical about her, and yet, there's an accessibility. I learned that she was somebody who is very, very disciplined, even though she's very young.

"She was a ballet dancer. (Charlize Theron, who played Furiosa in the film 'Mad Max: Fury Road') was a ballet dancer. I understand the physical discipline as well as the emotional discipline they have. So all of that led to Anya being in 'Furiosa'."

Chris Hemsworth portrays Warlord Dementus in the film and George described his Australian compatriot as "the complete article".

He explained: "I knew the character but I never thought of Chris until we met and we talked, and I realised he was somebody with a lot more dimensions to him than I had initially thought.

"I mean, for me, he is, as they say in Australia, the complete article. He's somebody who in every way is exemplary. He responded very well to the material."

'Furiosa' is the fifth picture in the 'Mad Max' franchise that started back in 1979 and George confessed that he finds the series "very addictive".

The 'Happy Feet' director said: "(It was) almost impossible to do action sequences in the streets of Melbourne in the city in the modern day... the idea was to set it in a dystopian future simply because we could play in empty streets – and that was a really lucky thing because accidentally the film, which otherwise would have been present-day naturalistic, turned out to be more allegoric, unwittingly, and that's what led to 'Mad Max' and that's why I'm still doing them, because they're very addictive."