'Mad Max: Fury Road' Director George Miller on the Stunt He Thought They Couldn't Pull Off (But Did)

At Tuesday night’s National Board of Review Gala, George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road was awarded Best Film honors — and probably would have been also named “Best Insane Non-Stop Explodo-rama” had there been such a category. This summer’s critically-beloved blockbuster reboot had so many wildly creative stunts that when Yahoo Movies saw director and co-writer Miller at the event, held at New York’s Cipriani 42nd Street, we had to ask him: Is there anything you’d wanted to do in the film that not even your team could pull off? Nope: Even things that he thought physically impossible turned out to be possible.

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“To be honest, virtually everything we came up with we were able to do,” Miller told us. “But there is something I didn’t think we could pull off: Those guys on the poles, the polecats” — the acrobats who were suspended high above their cars, swinging back and forth as they attempted to snatch the wives from Max and Furiosa’s rig at high speeds.

George Miller at the NBR dinner on Tuesday night (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

“I thought we’d have guys on poles on cars that weren’t moving,” continued the director. “And we’d pop them in with CGI afterward. I thought it was too dangerous. But they worked out the physics of the pendulum. And one day I looked up, and coming across the desert were all these guys on the poles. And that was really exciting.”

Miller did also note that there was something even more technically challenging that he considered including, but decided would have taken up too much time on-screen and off-. But he declined to give specifics, saying he’s saving this effect for a possible future Mad Max, which is apparently already in discussion. Could it be a rumored Furiosa spinoff for Charlize Theron? “I’ve certainly got a story,” said a coy Miller. “But for my next film, I just want to do something small and quick.” So that leaves plenty of time to alter the laws of physics for the next road race.

Watch the ‘Fury Road trailer: