The brain of filmmaker George Miller is a glorious thing. The creator of the Mad Max movies has conjured some of the craziest images ever committed to film – and now, at 79 years of age, he’s about to do it all over again in fifth outing Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Ever since the 1979 original Mad Max – and its sequels Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and most recently Mad Max: Fury Road – Miller has been pulling weird and wonderful creations from his imagination and bringing them to the screen with uncompromising vision.
As a result, the Mad Max saga is packed with oddballs, grotesqueries, twisted heroes, and despicable villains. Now’s the perfect time to revisit every film in the series – and meet the wildest inhabitants of the Wasteland.
‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky
Films: Mad Max, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Mad Max: Fury Road
Played by: Mel Gibson, Tom Hardy
You don’t have to be mad to survive in the Wasteland – but, living in the Wasteland is basically a one-way street to becoming mad. So it is for Max Rockatansky. In Miller’s relatively grounded (by Mad Max standards) original film, Max is a cop in a decaying world of gas-fuelled gangs – and it’s the tragic death of his wife Jessie and child Sprog at the hand of one such criminal group that sends him over the edge. There, he becomes fuelled by vengeance; later, as the series’ wild mythology unspools, Max is more a lone-wandering Wasteland legend, stumbling upon injustice and getting caught up in the pursuit of writing those wrongs. It comes at a personal cost – Hardy’s Max in Fury Road is the maddest yet, all snarling intensity and wild-eyed fervour. They don’t call him Mad Max for nothing.
Toecutter
Film: Mad Max
Played by: Hugh Keays-Byrne
You don’t get a name like Toecutter without being a total rotter, and the villain of the first Mad Max movie more than earns it. The leader of the Acolytes motorbike gang, he causes carnage and devastation wherever he goes – including being the man responsible for the death of Max’s wife and child. Dangerous and deranged, he has an air of total menace (rarely has the instruction “Take your hat off”, to a wary train guard, sounded so threatening) and a propensity for perpetrating violence upon all he meets. He was played so captivatingly by Hugh Keays-Byrne that Miller brought the actor back decades later to play Fury Road villain Immortan Joe (more on him later).
Mudguts
Film: Mad Max
Played by: David Bracks
The main rule of being a member of Toecutter’s biker gang seems to be, you have to have a bizarre nickname to go along with your general air of sadism. So, working among the revved-up Acolytes you have the likes of Bubba Zanetti, The Nightrider, Cundalini, and Johnny The Boy – all wrong’uns, all appropriately decked out with names that exude a mysterious malevolence. But the best (or, worst) name of all is Mudguts, a phrase so visceral that your stomach churns a little just thinking about it. What do you think he had to do to earn a name like that?
Lord Humungus
Film: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Played by: Kjell Nilsson
Talk about ego. Bestowing yourself with the title ‘Lord Humungus’ is absolutely a statement of intent – in The Road Warrior, he’s the self-styled ‘Warrior Of The Wasteland’, setting his ‘Dogs Of War’ (read: human followers) on unsuspecting survivors. That he does it all while wearing a metal-studded leather codpiece, other bits of bondage-style gear, and a metal mask that’d give Jason Voorhees the heebie-jeebies is only testament to the fact that nobody else can tell this guy what to do. As his name implies, he’s formidable in size and threateningly muscular – his backstory never officially told, but hinted at in the scarring on his head under that mask. They don’t call him ‘The Ayatollah of Rock-and-Rolla’ for nothing.
The Gyro Captain
Film: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Played by: Bruce Spence
In the Mad Max world, people tend to get around on modded cars or screaming motorbikes. Not the Gyro Captain – he has his own propellor-topped flying contraption, a weird, wild whirligig. The Captain is as mad as his machine – he makes his entrance into The Road Warrior by popping out of the ground when Max gets near the chopper, leaping about in yellow spandex and wielding a crossbow as his weapon of choice. Eventually he comes good, brought into Max’s attempt to free fearful settlers from the tyranny of Lord Humungus – and while the Gyrocopter itself sadly doesn’t make it to the end credits, there’s a brighter destiny for its pilot. O captain, my Gyro Captain.
Aunty Entity
Film: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
Played by: Tina Turner
If you’re casting a character who needs to me magnetic, enigmatic, charismatic, all while riding the line between friend and foe, who better to call on than the legendary Tina Turner? As the leader of Bartertown, Aunty Entity enlists Max in her quest to thwart the underground ‘Master Blaster’ duo who threaten her rule – though there’s more to the truth there than meets the eye. Played with swaggering showbiz razzle-dazzle by Turner, there’s an overt theatricality to Aunty – not only leading her town, but presiding over the ‘Thunderdome’, the gladiatorial arena where disputes are settled with one simple rule: two men enter, one man leaves. On screen, Aunty proves more than a match for Max; off screen, Turner delivered theme song ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’. Bust a deal and face the wheel!
Ironbar Bassey
Film: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
Played by: Angry Anderson
If you’re going to look the part in in Max’s mad world, you need to accessorise. Studs, belts, leather, mechanical components – all are worth considering when assembling your post-apocalyptic Wasteland outfit. But few have committed to their own unique style quite like Ironbar – Aunty Entity’s right-hand man and head of Bartertown security – who has a large porcelain-white Geisha-style doll’s head perched atop his own. Mounted to his back, the doll has flowing black locks that drift across Ironbar’s own face and neck, just another sensory nightmare amid the Wasteland’s other horrors. Played by Australian rocker ‘Angry’ Anderson, together he and Tina Turner make quite the hard-rocking duo.
Imperator Furiosa
Film: Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa
Played by: Charlize Theron, Anya Taylor-Joy
She’s got a ferocious buzz cut. She’s got a scrap-metal claw. She’s got the most impressive vehicle on the Fury Road. There’s no denying it – Imperator Furiosa was the breakout character of Miller’s long-awaited fourquel, a force of nature who tore up the screen just as much as Max. Just like she steers the giant chrome War Rig, Furiosa basically drives Fury Road – while Max is along for the ride, it’s her plan to escape the clutches of Immortan Joe (see below) and return to the land she was kidnapped from that sets the whole thing in motion. Watching her take control behind the wheel is thrilling – and Theron’s steely gaze, daubed in oily engine grease, instantly became a cinematic image for the ages. No wonder Furiosa ended up with her own movie.
Immortan Joe
Film: Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa
Played by: Hugh Keays-Byrne, Lachy Hulme
From his unhinged name (the wonky word ‘Immortan’ couldn’t make more sense in the Mad Max world), to his ludicrous plastic-clad six-pack, to his nightmarish tooth-studded skull-mask, Fury Road’s big baddie is seriously bad news. A warlord who’s raised himself to godlike status, his control of resources and capacity for cruelty is formidable – matched only by his ludicrous theatricality. He is, let’s be clear, a total monster. But he’s also prone to spouting grandiose nonsense like, “Do not, my friends, become addicted to water” to his captive subjects, in a brittle booming bark; his custom car is known as ‘The Gigahorse’; he called his own son, erm, Rictus Erectus. You can’t take your eyes off him – but seeing the damage he’s inflicting on his multiple wives and desperate subjects, you’re desperate to see Max and Furiosa take him down.
The Doof Warrior
Film: Mad Max: Fury Road
Played by: iOTA
Every event should have its own Doof Warrior. In the Wasteland, this is the ultimate hype-man, a vibesmith whose entire raison d’être is to bring some heavy metal pomp and circumstance to Immortan Joe’s desert chase. His job? Play a squealing, chugging, flame-throwing guitar while strapped to a chariot of amplifiers, suspended by bouncy bungie cords. Simple. Flanked by an army of drummers, the Doof Warrior provides the thrilling and terrifying in-universe score for the War Rig pursuit, matching the pace of Joe’s vehicles with his sludgy riffs, all while punctuating the pure-blue sky with arcs of petrol-fuelled fire. Flame on.