With Charlize Theron’s approval, Anya Taylor-Joy is reprising a role that the Oscar winner originally played.

While the two actresses have not yet met in person, the 48-year-old Theron is reportedly on board with the casting of 27-year-old Taylor-Joy as Furiosa in the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This will allow Taylor-Joy to bring the character to life at a younger age, according to Empire.

“She is been incredibly gracious and gracious in allowing me the freedom to do it,” Taylor-Joy remarked. However, I consider myself quite fortunate to have known this character as soon as I read the script. I was quite protective of Furiosa and everything she stood for.

Shaving her head was something she was really looking forward to, she said, mentioning Theron’s bald head in the 2015 dystopian action flick. After seeing me in person, director George Miller said, “No, we can’t!”

In an interview with Empire, the 79-year-old Miller said that he co-wrote the screenplay for the 2015 Tom Hardy film Furiosa, which he characterized as a “odyssey” that follows the titular character’s existence for fifteen years up to Fury Road.

“‘George, could we possibly make this first?'” she said. While getting ready to play Furiosa all those years ago, Miller mentioned Theron’s first reaction after reading the script. “It was a revelation—the first time I would ever felt that this story had substance.”

Throughout the past few years, while filming for Mad Max has progressed, Theron has maintained a diplomatic stance toward Taylor-Joy assuming her part. [A crazy Max prequel] is not making me crazy, you know. “One of the greatest f—— actresses is picking up something that I only imagined,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in December 2022, adding, “It is always tricky,” in response to the question of whether Taylor-Joy had solicited her services for a potential role-duplicating part.

“Who wants to pick up the phone and say, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to go do this without you,'” she pointed out at the time. “Nobody is interested in doing that. So, I completely understand. George is lovely, too. I will definitely speak with him again. It seemed like too much effort.

Production on the Furiosa film concluded in October 2022, and Tayloy-Joy said on Instagram that the experience had made her “tougher than I ever thought I could be” when she posted the caption.