Mad Max: Fury Road Star Nicholas Hoult Reflects on His Iconic Role

Nicholas Holt played Nux in George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road. The 2015 film is considered by many to be one of the best of the past decade. Hoult recently spoke to Variety about the role, sharing how the big-budget production felt more like an indie movie than an actual studio production. "With something like Mad Max," Hoult says, "that still felt in many ways almost like an indie movie in prep because George Miller had so much time and thought and history to each character and he'd send you all these videos charting Nux, the character that I played, his birth to when we meet him in the film and then his trajectory through the movie.

"With Mad Max it's something where you go, 'Wow, this is a lot of money,' but also, it's being made in the environment that it should be, with all the vehicles, and all that money ends up making it better for you as an actor, meaning you can just jump into that environment and use it for your performance."

George Miller still has plans for the Mad Max's post-apocalyptic warrior. The next film is said to be a prequel, Mad Mad: Furiosa, focusing on Charlize Theron's Fury Road character, though Theron won't be reprising the role this time.

"So after we finish [Three Thousand Years of Longing], and hopefully everything settles down with the pandemic, we'll see what the world allows us to do with Furiosa," Miller said in a recent interview. "For the longest time, I thought we could just use CG de-aging on Charlize, but I don't think we're nearly there yet. Despite the valiant attempts on The Irishman, I think there's still an uncanny valley. Everyone is on the verge of solving it, particular Japanese video-game designers, but there's still a pretty wide valley, I believe."

Miller built Furiosa's story from the script-worth of backstory Miller came up with for the character during pre-production on Fury Road, similar to the deep backstory he created for Nux and provided to Hoult. At last check, Miller hoped to start filming the sequel in 2021. Rumor had it that he'd even met with New Mutants and Split star Anya Taylor-Joy about playing the lead role.

What did you think of Hoult as Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road? Are you looking forward to the Furiosa prequel? Let us know what you think in the comments section.