Anya Taylor-Joy being lined up for Mad Max prequel Furiosa

2015 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road took its name from Tom Hardy's weathered, taciturn loner. But let's be honest, the heart of the ecstatically exciting movie belonged to Charlize Theron as rig driver Furiosa.

In fact, so impactful was Theron's shaven-headed resourceful action hero, that she's due to get her own self-titled prequel movie. However, given that it takes place before the events of Fury Road, we shouldn't expect Theron back in the role.

Variety reports that director George Miller has Skype-auditioned a number of rising young stars, with Emma's Anya Taylor-Joy currently being linked to the part. Apparently, Miller wants to shoot Furiosa in 2021, but with the film industry currently in crisis owing to the coronavirus pandemic, it may be too early to call it.

Taylor-Joy first burst onto our screens in 2016 in Robert Eggers' The Witch, a blood-curdling story of 17th-century superstition and religious mania. She excelled as Thomasin, the eldest daughter in a family who believe they're beset by witchcraft, with the ironically liberating finale acting as one of the most chilling movie moments in recent years.

The actor then built on her breakout performance in M. Night Shyamalan's comeback movie Split, in which she played a young woman kidnapped by James McAvoy's split-personality psychopath. Having brought an enjoyably frosty and brittle quality to Jane Austen's Emma in the recent big-screen adaptation (due for digital release very soon), she'll next be seen in the much-delayed X-Men spin-off The New Mutants.