Hugh Keays-Byrne: Making Fury Road

In this excerpt from his NFSA oral history, English-Australian actor Hugh Keays-Byrne talks about making Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Keays-Byrne had played the memorable antagonist, Toecutter, in the very first Mad Max film in 1979 so it was a special moment to see him return to the franchise as Immortan Joe in Fury Road, lord of the Citadel and leader of his fanatical War Boys.

In this clip, he gives some impressions of working on the later film compared to the first and we get a sense of the increase in scale, changes in filmmaking technology – and regard for safety! – as well as his working relationship with director George Miller.

Keays-Byrne’s acting career stretches back to the late 1960s. After touring Australia with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1973, he stayed on and appeared on television before landing the role of Toad in the biker film Stone (1974), which began his Australian film career.

Lorna Lesley interviewed Hugh Keays-Byrne for the NFSA Oral History program in 2019.