Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga actor Tom Burke has explained why he was relieved after reading the script for the first time.
In the new wasteland blockbuster, Burke plays war rig commander Praetorian Jack, who helps Anya Taylor-Joy’s vengeful Furiosa on her way to confronting her mother’s killer, Dementus.
The “Strike” star told The Independent of his suspicions after hearing that filmmaker George Miller wanted to meet him via video during the casting, and admitted that he thought he had been given the role of the “wrong guy.”
“I’ve played a few of them in my life,” Burke said, “and I thought, OK, the movie is set in the world of Mad Max, so obviously the role is going to be a lecherous, horrible person.”
“To my great relief, that wasn’t the case,” he added. “Because you can only do so much in a row before it gets a little bit soul-sucking.”
Before this prequel to Mad Mad: Fury Road, Burke appeared in the horror films Donkey Punch, The Hooligan Factory, Utopia, The Souvenir and Mank, which features some of these so-called scumbags.
Looking back on the Furiosa experience, he added: “I had never been on such a scale before. Because of that, I felt much more intimidated than I wanted to admit.”
In her four-star review of Furiosa, Roxy Simons of Yahoo Entertainment UK wrote that the film doesn’t rely on the same “big, loud action” as its predecessor. Instead, Miller chose to “focus on the more intimate journey Furiosa goes through, letting us share in her pain and struggle for survival.”
“It helps the audience better understand the character and their problems, but the stop-and-go rhythm of the narrative can make it difficult to really get involved.”
Furiosa is now in theaters.
