Mad Max Fools Everyone With Fan-Favorite Sci-Fi Fantasy Star

In Mad Max 2, Bruce Spence plays a thief whose name we never learn, and who is credited merely as “The Gyro Captain.” When he tries and fails to rob Max (Mel Gibson, in the earlier films), the Gyro Captain convinces the hero to spare his life in exchange for precious information–the location of an oil refinery bursting with fuel.

In spite of being portrayed as a scoundrel for most of the flick, the Gyro Captain risks his life to defend the refinery’s inhabitants from the forces of Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson), and even takes command of the survivors after their leader’s death.

Ironically, while Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome gives Bruce Spence a lot less screen time, it also gives his character a proper name–Jedediah. It’s this thieving pilot who kicks off the action in Thunderdome by stealing almost all of Max’s belongings, which forces the hero to head to Bartertown and deal with the duplicitous Aunty Entity (Tina Turner).

It isn’t until the film’s final clash that we see Jedediah again. After his pint-sized son (Adam Cockburn) tries to rob Max and his new allies, Max threatens Jedediah into flying his friends to safety.

The last we see of Jedediah and his son, they’re flying Master (Angelo Rossitto), Pig Killer (Robert Grubb), and the Waiting Ones to the ruined Sydney–we never learn if the bandit and his boy join the young tribe in their attempts to rebuild the city or not.

You can hardly blame fans for thinking both Mad Max films had Bruce Spence playing the same character. They’re both pilots, both thieves, both played by the same actor, and they both start off as antagonists and end as allies.

Sure, Jedediah has a kid in Beyond Thunderdome while the Gyro Captain was childless in The Road Warrior, but so? Time has passed, after all, and the captain was getting pretty friendly with that one blonde refinery survivor in the earlier film.

It’s a dangerous, sand-filled world and–hypothetically if the Captain had a kid with the blonde refinery survivor–something unfortunate could have happened to the mother between movies.

Mad Max co-creator George Miller–who has directed and co-written every film in the franchise–has said on multiple occasions that Bruce Spence plays different characters in The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome. And really, if you go back and rewatch The Road Warrior–or if you have a good enough memory–we don’t even need Miller’s word on the subject.

At the end of The Road Warrior, we learn the film’s narrator (voiced by Harold Baigent) is an older version of the young feral boy who wields the razor sharp boomerang and is in Max’s passenger seat for the final battle.

The Mad Max 2 narrator also informs us that Bruce Spence’s character takes over as leader of the refinery survivors, who “traveled far beyond the reach of men on machines.”

As we see in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Bruce Spence’s Jedediah is very much not “far beyond the reach of men on machines.”

Mad Max has plenty of repeat offenders beyond Bruce Spence who play multiple roles in the series.

Josh Helman plays the scarred war boy Slit in Fury Road and Scrotus in Furiosa. Max Fairchild was Benno in Mad Max and Broken Victim in The Road Warrior. Of course the late Hugh Keays-Byrne played both Max’s first big bad (Toecutter in Mad Max) and his most recent one (Immortan Joe in Fury Road).

There are even two actors in Furiosa–Lachy Hulme (Immortan Joe and Rizzdale Pell), and Elsa Pataky (Vuvalini General and Mr. Norton)–who play multiple roles in the same film.

However, it’s fair to say of all the Mad Max stars who played multiple roles, none had parts quite as similar as the two played by Bruce Spence.