Furiosa Is Coming Back to Theaters — How Did the Mad Max Icon Lose Her Arm?
"It made sense to me that she would lose her arm in the pursuit of something that she thought was bigger than herself," said actress Anya Taylor-Joy.
Published May 23 2024, 10:39 a.m. ET
Almost a decade after Mad Max: Fury Road was released and earned a reputation as one of the best action movies of the 21st century, fans of the Mad Max movies are now getting ready for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This new film functions as a prequel to Fury Road, telling the story of Imperator Furiosa, one of the leads of Fury Road, in her younger years.
One of the great unanswered questions that Furiosa may answer is exactly what happened to Furiosa's arm. In Fury Road, one of her arms has been replaced by a mechanical arm, although it doesn't keep her from driving and shooting with the best. Ahead of the movie's release, here are some theories as to what happened to it:
How did Furiosa lose her arm?
While Furiosa seems likely to reveal exactly what happened, Fury Road only implied that she lost her arm after she became an Imperator, meaning after she came into the service of Imperator Joe.
One prominent theory is that she lost her arm in some sort of mechanical accident. After all, she is best known as a driver, and it's not like the driving in the world of Mad Max is all that safe.
It's also possible that she lost it in a more symbolic sacrifice, either as prove of her loyalty to Joe or because she thought she could save someone else. Anya Taylor-Joy hasn't offered a definitive explanation yet, but she did give a hint during a recent interview promoting the film.
"It made sense to me that she would lose her arm in the pursuit of something that she thought was bigger than herself. That made a lot of sense to me," she said.
Anya also added that losing her arm and her hair were key moments in the character's overall development.
"The loss of the arm and the loss of the hair actually both were important steps that we had to take if we were going to be able to chart the journey of how this little girl became a character that now we all know and love," she added.
Director George Miller, who has overseen every Mad Max film and directed Furiosa, said that they came up with the explanation for how Furiosa lost her arm before they filmed Fury Road. In fact, it was part of Charlize Theron's prep to play the character.
"How did she lose her arm? How did she make that thing? How did she get the skill to be a really good driver? All of those things we had to understand," he explained of the need for a prequel.
"She's just not an action hero who turns up and can do it without us knowing why," he added. "So we had to understand all of that, how she was resourceful enough to be able to endure whatever came her way. And all of that had to be understood before we started. And that in order to shoot Fury Road, it was all decided back then."
