George Miller: Mad Max: Fury Road

Director George Miller’s newest entry in the Mad Max series is a chase action adventure movie that thrilled audiences when it was released over the summer. It clearly wowed the Academy too -- Mad Mad: Fury Road is up for 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.

In this version, Tom Hardy takes on the role of the tortured and taciturn hero trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He forms an uneasy alliance with a group of women, their leader played by Charlize Theron.

Miller made the first Mad Max in Australia 37 years ago. Since then, he's had a successful and exceptionally varied career --directing the supernatural dramedy The Witches of Eastwick and the heart-wrenching medical drama, Lorenzo’s Oil. He wrote and produced the Babe movies and directed one of them, and won an Oscar for the animated penguin film Happy Feet.

Miller originally studied to be a doctor, and even graduated from medical school. But once he started making films, he never quite got back to medicine. He tells us about the differences of making movies in Australia compared to Hollywood, and his memories of working with Mel Gibson on the first Mad Max movies.

Gibson was originally supposed to be in Mad Max: Fury Road as well, but that was back when the script was first written, almost 20 years ago. Since then, the film has faced almost every obstacle, but Miller was patient. He shares how the film finally got made with Tom Hardy as the lead, and why he picked his wife Margaret Sixel to edit the film.