About the Book
A full-speed-ahead oral history of the nearly two-decade making of the cultural phenomenon Mad Max: Fury Road--with more than 130 new interviews with key members of the cast and crew, including Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, and director George Miller, from the pop culture reporter for The New York Times, Kyle Buchanan.
It won six Oscars and has been hailed as the greatest action film ever, but it is a miracle Mad Max: Fury Road ever made it to the screen... or that anybody survived the production. The story of this modern classic spanned nearly two decades of wild obstacles as visionary director George Miller tried to mount one of the most difficult shoots in Hollywood history.
Production stalled several times, stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron clashed repeatedly in the brutal Namib Desert, and Miller's crew engineered death-defying action scenes that were among the most dangerous ever committed to film. Even accomplished Hollywood figures are flummoxed by the accomplishment: As the director Steven Soderbergh has said, "I don't understand how they're not still shooting that film, and I don't understand how hundreds of people aren't dead."
Kyle Buchanan takes readers through every step of that moviemaking experience in vivid detail, from Fury Road's unexpected origins through its outlandish casting process to the big-studio battles that nearly mutilated a masterpiece. But he takes the deepest dive in reporting the astonishing facts behind a shoot so unconventional that the film's fantasy world began to bleed into the real lives of its cast and crew. As they fought and endured in a wasteland of their own, the only way forward was to have faith in their director's mad vision. But how could Miller persevere when almost everything seemed to be stacked against him?
With hundreds of exclusive interviews and details about the making of Fury Road, readers will be left with one undeniable conclusion: There has never been a movie so drenched in sweat, so forged by fire, and so epic in scope.
Read by Fred Berman, Aspen Vincent, Dan Bittner, Derek Perkins, Eva Kaminsky, Fiona Hardingham, Gary Furlong, George Newbern, Ione Butler, Jason Culp, Jeff Gurner, Katherine Littrell, Leon Nixon, Lisa Flanagan, Malk Williams, Michael Crouch, Polly Lee, Ralph Lister, Robin Miles, Samuel Roukin, and Will M. Watt
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
About the Author :
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter at the New York Times, where he writes a column about awards season called "The Projectionist." He has been named Journalist of the Year at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards and previously served as a senior editor at Vulture, New York magazine's entertainment website, where he covered the movie industry. A native of Southern California, he lives in Los Angeles.
Fred Berman has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. He is an actor of theater, film, and television whose credits include Broadway's The Lion King, Law & Order, and Directing Eddie, among others. He was featured in Entertainment Weekly for his work on the Walking Dead audiobook series.
Dan Bittner is an actor and voice talent and winner of several AudioFile Earphones Awards for audio narration. He has starred on stage and on the screen, in movies such as Men in Black, Adventureland, and the Producers: The Movie Musical. He has also appeared onstage as Macbeth and Sherlock Holmes in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Derek Perkins is a professional narrator and voice actor. He has earned numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, as well as numerous Society of Voice Arts nominations. AudioFile magazine named him a Best Voice consecutively in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Augmented by a knowledge of three foreign languages and a facility with accents, he has narrated numerous titles in a wide range of fiction and nonfiction genres.
Eva Kaminsky is a New York-based actor and audiobook narrator with over 150 titles to her credit. She trained at Boston University and has acted in numerous productions on television and film, including Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Happyish, Ugly Betty, ER, Numbers, Law & Order, and others.
Fiona Hardingham is a British-born actress, singer, voice-over artist, and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. On stage, she appeared at the Edinburgh Festival in her comedic one-woman show The Dark Show. She has also starred in the dark-comedy short film The Ballerino. She earned a BA honors degree in performing arts from Middlesex University, London, and also studied at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Gary Furlong grew up in Wexford, Ireland. Throughout his life he has worn many hats working as a teacher, puppeteer, improv artist, actor, and singer. He can perform in general British, general American, and an Irish accent to a native level and can speak Japanese fluently. He now works full time as an audiobook narrator and voice actor from his home in Ireland.
George Newbern is an Earphones Award-winning narrator and a television and film actor best known for his roles as Brian MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as well as Danny in Friends. As a voice actor, he is notable for his role as Superman on the Cartoon Newtork series Static Shock, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. He has guest starred on many television series, including Scandal, The Mentalist, Private Practice, CSI: Miami, and Numb3rs. He holds a BA in theater arts from Northwestern University.
Ione Butler is a British actress, host, voice-over artist, and entrepreneur, and the founder of Uplifting Content. Based in Los Angeles, Ione can often be found traveling for work or fun. Jason Culp, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, has been acting since the age of ten, and his credits include a variety of television, theater, and film roles. He is best known for his role as Julian Jerome on General Hospital. In addition to audiobooks and voice-over work in national commercials, he has also narrated documentaries for National Geographic and the History Channel.
Jeff Gurner created the title role in the American premiere of A Prayer for Owen Meany at Playmakers Rep. He has appeared in productions on and off Broadway such as The Lion King, Five Course Love, The London Cuckolds, and Harrigan & Hart. His film and television credits include Law & Order: SVU, Third Watch, and Hey Joel!, an animated series for VHI.
Katherine Littrell is a Sydney-based audiobook narrator who studied English literature at Bryn Mawr College. She has lived in the United States and the U.K. but is glad to be back home in Australia, where she enjoys knitting, making furniture, and talking out loud to herself in small spaces. Leon Nixon is a professional actor, playwright, and filmmaker. A Los Angeles native, he has performed in short films, web series, and on stage in dramatic and comedic roles. He is also an improviser and part of the group that appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for Longest Continuous Improv Show.
Lisa Flanagan is a classically trained soprano, comedian, voice-over artist, and Earphones Award-winning narrator.
Malk Williams is a voice talent and Earphones Awardâ "winning audiobook narrator.
Michael Crouch is an actor based in New York City. His audiobook narration has won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, numerous Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, and Best of the Year accolades from Booklist, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. He can also be heard on national commercials, cartoons, video games, and the animé series Pokémon XY and Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V.
Polly Lee, an Earphones Award-winning narrtor, is an actress from London who has appeared in the off-Broadway shows Lenin's Embalmer's, Close Ties, Slag Heap, The October Crisis, and others. She received her BA degree in theater studies from London University and an MFA from the New School in New York.
Ralph Lister is an actor, voice actor, and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He spent fifteen years in London theater before moving to the United States to focus on film and television. He has held numerous roles in Shakespeare and modern dramas, as well as starring roles in independent films. His voice and character work can be heard in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearland 13 Going On 30. He lives in Los Angeles.
Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic's Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors' unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.
Samuel Roukin, Earphones Award-winning narrator, is a British film and stage actor who is best known for his role as Snatcher in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. He has also appeared in Bright Star and Miss Austin Regrets.
Will Watt is a British voiceover artist and audiobook narrator with a talent for believable characters, intelligent delivery, and writing about himself in the third person. Coming soon...
