Nicholas Hoult has played an X-Man (Hank McCoy/Beast in Days of Future Past). He's climbed to magical realms and battled enormous bad guys (Jack in Jack the Giant Slayer). He's battled Medusa (and lost) in Clash of the Titans, and eaten brains as the zombie heartthrob of Warm Bodies. But Hoult says he's never seen anything like the set of Mad Max: Fury Road, in which he plays Nux, a psychotic wasteland gearhead who worships vehicular violence. During the reporting of our feature in the May issue of WIRED, we spoke to Hoult about the movie's premium on practical effects and old-fashioned stunt work.
WIRED: You've done a lot of action in the X-Men films and Jack the Giant Slayer. What was different on Fury Road?
Hoult: The stunt crew and George were all into trying to make stunts real and do them practically as opposed to doing them on a green screen. You're very protected as an actor a lot of the time. On Fury Road, we were protected, but a lot of the time, well, you were also hanging under a truck with a harness. They're saying, "Don't scoot too far this way or your head will end up under the front wheel." All around you, cars are crashing and flipping. Some incredible stuff happens. It makes your life as an actor easy, actually. You're not even thinking about the acting. You're just being put in this real situation.
How does that affect your acting?
This way is a lot easier. Doing lots of green screen, you end up having to think about what's going on. I'm not really traveling at this speed but I've got to feel like it. I've got no feedback through this steering wheel but I've got to pretend that there is feedback. It just makes it more believable for me as an actor.
Do you ever get scared?
There are times when it's counterproductive. When it's actually scary and my character is not supposed to be scared. "We're going to crash this vehicle into you!" "Oh? Uh… Okay…" I mean, this isn't my life. I'm not used to these things. But usually between action and cut there's a sense of invincibility. I'm mainly driving, but there were a few scenes, where I'm hanging up under trucks, getting thrown between vehicles, getting flung around by guys who could toss me in the air.
So, you worked closely with stuntmen. What were they like?
The bike riders and drivers go into a little bit of a zone before doing a big stunt. It's quite amazing to see. I talked to one stunt driver before he was driving this monster truck and flipping it. The thing they have to overcome is basically every instinct in your body saying: Don't crash. Don't do that. It's stupid.
The scope of this film is enormous. What was it like being on set?
We were filming in the desert in Namibia. It was quite disorienting. The engines were incredibly loud. You couldn't hear a thing most of the time. There's so much sand and dust you can't see well. You're flying blind. And my character is so hyped up. He believes that if he dies gloriously in battle he will go to Valhalla. He's a bit of a nutjob. And then you'd just occasionally see the camera arm float alongside your car and suddenly realize the shot is on you now. A fleet of a hundred cars is behind you. Is this the right time to say the line? As an actor you feel a responsibility. You're there in the foreground and a lot is riding on that shot. You can't mess up your end of the deal.
What is George Miller like on set?
George is incredibly calm on set. He's an incredibly intelligent person, a doctor. And he's creating this whole universe with such attention to detail. He sent me hours of videos with backstory for my character: where he'd been and how he fit into this world. He was directing this huge production with 700 people on set in the middle of the desert some days, and all of these vehicles, but he was so calm and collected. One of the smartest things he said to me was, "It was a long time coming for me to get this film made. It's important for me not to get too excited and watch it from my point of view." He said he had to watch it from the point of view of someone sitting in the theater in a few years' time.
Did you ever see a stunt go seriously wrong?
These guys are really good. When stunts go wrong on set, it's because things are rushed. It's at the end of the day and you're losing the sun. For 116 days of this shoot, all the stunts were prepared and well thought through. Nothing was ever rushed. I'm just elated with the film. George was one of the first people to put a wide lens close to the ground and shoot car chases that way and make you feel the speed and really feel the action. With technology nowadays and new ways of shooting, he's managed to create an even more exciting, epic movie.
