One of the great pleasures of working at Nerdist is the chance to sit down with people whose work I admire immensely and pick their brains to learn about their creative process. While I love talking to actors, the most stressful interviews, by far, are usually with directors. For whatever reason, there is just an additional sense of pressure there when you’re speaking with someone who is trying to realize a creative vision on a grand canvas, tying together the creativity, art, and craft of so many disparate parts to create a cohesive whole. The very first on-camera interview I did for Nerdist was with Ridley Scott around the release of Prometheus and I was scared half to death. I felt that same fear running through my veins when I sat down with director George Miller to talk about his phenomenal new film Mad Max: Fury Road. (Although maybe letting fear and instinct take over was for the best because I had literally just stepped off a plane from Vancouver and rushed over to make the interview.)

At age 70, Miller just threw down a gauntlet before the modern action movie landscape. With Mad Max: Fury Road, he has created a visceral ballet of death and destruction that deconstructs issues of matriarchy and patriarchy. Moreover, it is a visual feast, a smorgasbord of splendor for the viewer to ravenously consume. In short, I loved it. But like all great movies, it left me wanting more. So, with that in mind, I sat down with Miller to talk with him about revisiting the world he left 30 years ago, the challenges of pulling off these massive practical stunts in the age of CGI, recasting his iconic hero, and much more.

If you do one thing this weekend, go watch Mad Max: Fury Road. If you do two things, watch Mad Max: Fury Road and this interview. Because great cinema is a terrible thing to waste, and George Miller just gave the world something awfully great.

Dan Casey is the senior editor for Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).