8 Movie Characters With Fascinating Backstories You Didn't Know About
Want to know why Furiosa hates Immortan Joe so much?
Audiences are drawn to mysterious characters like The Man With No Name, Snake Plisskin or Heath Ledger’s Joker because the less we know, the more intriguing they become. A backstory can get in the way of that, and it’s often more fun for audiences to draw their own theories than have it all spelt out.
This vagueness doesn’t help an actor when they’re prepping a role, though, so some of them invent a biography to flesh it out. This is just a creative exercise to help shape the part, and it’s not intended to be included in the movie. Sometimes a director will like what they came up and hint at it, but often they’ll be the only ones who’ll know the character’s real history.
It gets real interesting when they eventually spill the beans on these secret biographies, because they’re often more bizarre than anything a fan could dream up. From traumatic childhoods to secret gay love affairs, these are the hidden backstories you never knew about your favourite characters.
8. Mad Max: Fury Road - Furiosa Has Good Reason To Hate Immortan Joe
Mad Max: Fury Road was in development so long that not only was George Miller able to come up with a complete biography for each character, he was even able to write a couple of sequel scripts too.
While Fury Road is light on exposition each character clearly has a lot of personal baggage, and Furiosa's deep-seated hatred for Immortan Joe is obvious. The movie only reveals she was kidnapped when she was young, but aside from that, it’s up to the viewer to fill in the blanks.
Theron and Miller talked extensively about Furiosa’s background, deciding she was stolen from the Green Place to be a bride for Immortan Joe, but when he realised she couldn’t breed she was cast out. She then hung out with the War Pups and became a mechanic, before eventually becoming one of Joe’s best warriors.
She lost her arm during a battle for him and finally turned on him when she became the protector of the Five Wives, and saw how he treated them like meat. Knowing this background makes her “Remember me?” comment all the sweeter when she finally gains revenge.