By Emma Chance | Film | May 23, 2024 |
By Emma Chance | Film | May 23, 2024 |
Star of Furiosa, Anya Taylor-Joy wants more furious women in film (sorry I had to).
“I’ve developed a bit of a reputation for fighting for feminine rage, which is a strange thing because I’m not promoting violence—but I am promoting women being seen as people,” she recently told British GQ. “We have reactions that are not always dainty or unmessy.”
She said the first time she had to fight for it was on The Witch, when her character was meant to cry during a scene where she’s “dragged from the family’s farmyard and accused of being the evil presence inside the house,” , according to THR, but she found herself unable to produce tears while filming, and that made her question why the character would be crying in the first place.
“Eventually, I said, ‘She’s angry; she’s fucking pissed. She’s been blamed time and time again, and she’s not doing anything. We have to stop with the crying,” she told director Robert Eggers, and he approved. That experience gave her more confidence to speak up on set, and the next time she did was on The Menu, when her character “was supposed to produce a single tear once she learned her date had intentionally brought her to the film’s restaurant to die.” She says she read the script and said, “What planet are we living on?”
“I was like, ‘Let me explain to you: I am going to leap across the table and try and literally kill him with my bare hands,’” she said, and director Mark Mylod agreed.
Then she got to work with Eggers again on The Northman, and she made changes in a scene when her character needed to fend off a lecherous man.
“It was Anya’s idea for Olga to douse her hand with her own menstrual blood before slapping Fjölnir in the face,” Eggers said of the scene, which he describes as a “very strong, defiant and memorable choice.”
As for Furiosa, “There’s one scream in that movie, and I am not joking when I tell you that I fought for that scream for three months.”
She says she’s learned how to access her own rage by advocating for it in her roles:
“For all my championing of female rage, I’ve never been an angry person,” she admitted. “For a long time the only time I ever got angry was on other people’s behalfs. I’ve always internalized this thing of ‘I’ve done something wrong. If you treat me badly, it’s because I am the problem.’ And I’m so grateful for Furiosa, because there was a real moment where I started getting angry for myself.”