You might think that actress Anya Taylor-Joy was born and raised in the United Kingdom,
but this self-described "mutt" actually grew up in America and Argentina. So just how did
she become one of the most prominent young stars of today? Keep watching to witness her
stunning transformation!
Taylor-Joy had a pretty unique childhood. The youngest of six children, she was born
in Miami, but her family moved to Argentina shortly after she was born. When she was six,
they relocated again, this time to London, England. Little Anya wasn't a big fan of her
new home at first. In fact, she refused to speak English for two whole years. In 2020,
she told NME,
"I wanted to go home, and in my 6, 7-year-old mentality I thought my parents would have
to take me back if I didn't speak the language."
Eventually, Taylor-Joy realized that she'd have to get used to her new home. She picked
up English from a British icon, as her uncle used the Harry Potter books to help her learn.
As she told NME,
"All my language when I was young was quite precocious because I was learning from these
books. I was also very well versed in spells from a very young age."
"I was either casting spells continuously or using very annoying words, like I was such
a precocious, annoying little kid."
Taylor-Joy has been dead set on acting from a very young age. She's wanted it for so long
that she actually can't remember when the idea first occurred to her. In 2017, she told
The Independent,
"I don’t remember wanting anything different. I've really tried to pinpoint the moment I
was like, 'This is me, this is what I want to dedicate my life to.' I just sort of knew."
Thankfully for Taylor-Joy, her parents were always super supportive. As it turns out,
they were pretty tired after raising five other children. Taylor-Joy explained to NME,
"When I came around and I was very willful and knew what I wanted to do they were like,
'Go for it!'"
With her unwavering determination, combined with her parents' exhaustion, she was pretty
much destined for a career on the big screen right from the very beginning.
When Taylor-Joy was a teenager, everything changed for her quite by chance. Even though
she had her sights set on acting from a very young age, it wasn't until she was 16 that
she got her first big break. She was outside of the famous Harrods shop in London when
she was spotted by Sarah Doukas, the world famous model scout who was responsible for
discovering the likes of Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne. The very next day, Taylor-Joy
signed with Doukas' Storm modeling agency.
"It was the head of a modeling agency, and she told me off for stopping, and then told
me to come into the modeling agency the next day with my parents."
Soon enough, the budding actress was immersed in the modeling world. During one photoshoot,
she struck up a conversation with actor Allen Leech, who played Tom Branson on Downton Abbey.
She'd been reading a book of Seamus Heaney poems, and she recited some for Leech. As
she recalled to NME,
"He took my name and number and said, 'Expect a call.' His agent is now my agent. She told
me he was quite persistent about it, saying, 'Have you called her yet, you need to call
this girl.'"
After spending her entire childhood hoping to make it in showbiz, Taylor-Joy was incredibly
lucky to sign with a great acting agent at the age of 16. But like most actors, she also
had to learn to deal with rejection the hard way before the scripts really started rolling
in. And as it turned out, her very first audition ended up being a massive letdown.
The audition was for the younger version of the title character in the 2014 Disney movie
Maleficent. For Taylor-Joy, this would've been a dream job, as she's been open about
her love of Disney, so the rejection hit especially hard. As she explained to Buzzfeed,
"Even though I look nothing like [Angelina Jolie], I definitely cried for a very long
time after that happened."
Luckily, Taylor-Joy didn't have to deal with too much rejection after that, as she was
cast in her first big film role shortly thereafter.
Taylor-Joy's breakout performance arrived in the form of the 17th century-set horror
film The Witch, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival before expanding into
wide release in 2016. For the actress, the experience of making this particular movie
was extremely informative. As she told The Independent,
"The Witch was [director Robert Eggers] and I finding our feet. He had never directed
anything, I had never acted in anything. I didn’t know what a mark was. When he said,
'go and hit the mark,' I was like, 'What am I hitting?'"
She added,
"I was so enthralled and excited by everything I was doing and picking things up because
I had to. How many things am I allowed to do? How many takes do we get? Am I allowed
to do things differently? I was finding my way."
The movie was an unexpected success, so Taylor-Joy and Eggers had to learn to deal with sudden
fame. She revealed to Interview Magazine,
"We didn't know if anyone was ever going to see it, and, literally overnight, the film
exploded. It was never something we were expecting to happen."
Soon after The Witch, Taylor-Joy starred in M. Night Shyamalan's Split and its sequel
Glass. With all these horror and thriller roles, she started to be labeled a "scream
queen," a stereotype that she was happy to shed as time went on. With later roles in
period dramas like Emma. and the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit, she ultimately proved
that she was capable of acting in a wide range of genres. This variety was no accident. As
she told NME,
"It’s very interesting how people want to put you in a box. I’m very grateful to directors
who have seen outside of that. If I keep doing all of these different roles, hopefully people
will understand that we’re actors and it’s our job to be chameleons."
When Taylor-Joy was cast in the superhero flick The New Mutants, she got a chance to
learn a pretty cool new technique: stunt fighting. This training turned out to be surprisingly
enjoyable for her, even if it was a far cry from her normal skills. She used to be a ballet
dancer and had never fought before. So learning how to be a fighter proved to be fascinating,
and she got plenty of experience because the New Mutants team wanted her to do as many
of her own stunts as she possibly could. In general, the stunt team was incredibly supportive
towards her, which helped her work up the confidence to do the trickier stunts. As she
explained,
"All of a sudden you get up there and you are strapped up with wires with a giant sword
and you are in your costume and you are like, 'I have got to make it work now. I have loved
the action so much and I love my sword and I love stunts, and for the next movie, I want
to do all of my own stunts completely."
It sounds like she developed a serious warrior mentality, so make sure you don't get on her
bad side!
Playing the title character in the 2020 adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Emma was a big moment
for Taylor-Joy. She was working alongside legends of the British screen like Bill Nighy
and Miranda Hart, and unsurprisingly, she found herself a little intimidated. She told
Buzzfeed,
"I was really frightened my first day of rehearsals, because I just saw all of these icons of cinema
come in, and they were all so English, and I'm like a mutt."
Luckily for Taylor-Joy, her co-stars turned out to be nice people. But it wasn't just
her fellow actors who made her nervous. It was also the long hours. She confessed to
Glamour,
"I put a lot of pressure on myself and I had a panic attack on set one day just because
the hours are really intense and I'm in every single scene and I was trying to learn all
of these different skills whilst also filming."
But as time went on, Taylor-Joy grew more confident. She told Glamour,
"At the end of that shoot I was like, 'I have undeniably worked very hard and I can be proud
of that!'"
In addition to gaining plenty of confidence while making Emma., Taylor-Joy also developed
a newfound interest in interior design. The film is set in Georgian-era British mansions,
and it features absolutely stunning and lavish sets. Naturally enough, Taylor-Joy was enthralled
by the designs. As she told Country & Town House,
"[Director] Autumn [de Wilde] and I talk about that kind of stuff all the time – our text
chain conversations are just tons of pictures of wallpaper [...] I really love the pink
dining room with that incredible embossed wallpaper."
It sounds like Taylor-Joy spent plenty of time on the set literally staring at walls!
Sadly though, she didn't really have any means of exploring her new interest once the shoot
came to an end. As of 2020, she doesn't really have her own home to decorate because of the
unpredictable nature of her work. As she told NME,
"I’ve got really into interior design, but I’ve realized that you actually need an
interior to design if you’re going to be into that!"
Because many of Taylor-Joy's projects have been more or less one right after the other,
she hasn't had much downtime. Days on set can be seriously long and grueling, which
makes self-care especially important, which she realized while filming the 2020 Netflix
miniseries The Queen's Gambit, in which she plays orphan chess prodigy Beth Harmon. As
she explained in Interview Magazine,
"When Beth and I aligned, I'd had a really crazy year, because I made Emma., had a day
off, then I did Last Night in Soho, had a day off, and then it was The Queen's Gambit.
For the first time, I was like, 'I need to take care of myself in a very aggressive way,
because otherwise I’m not going to be able to do this well.'"
So how does Taylor-Joy practice self-care? It all begins with positive thinking. As she
told Glamour,
"I think it's just about learning to try and be easier on yourself [...] I've started to
take the wins and not feel too bad about the losses."
The Queen's Gambit presented Taylor-Joy with some new challenges, as the show covered six
years and jumped around between time periods. As she revealed to Interview Magazine,
"I'm usually very instinctive. I don't like to prepare too much."
However, when it came to this role, she realized that more preparation than usual was necessary.
As she explained,
"Playing Beth, I had to do a lot more of that, because when you're charting somebody from
the ages of 15 to 21, you have to be really aware of what she experienced."
In this case, that included asking herself questions about Beth's backstory and creating
a timeline so that she could keep track of her narrative. She also had to do some serious
research into chess and alcoholism, which she did by reading plenty of books and studying
with some of the world's best chess masters.
Taylor-Joy has come a long way, as both an actor and as a young woman, and by the looks
of things, she won't be slowing down on her journey any time soon. She wants to keep pushing
herself to try new things, and her next big goal is to take part in a musical. She told
NME,
"The idea of having to push your body through all of that and learn all of those skills
really excites me."
But it might be a while before we get to see this musical, because Taylor-Joy has also
admitted that she's scared of singing in public. Either way, it's clear that she has no plans
to rest on her laurels anytime soon. We can't wait to see what she tackles next, and no
matter what it is, we're sure she's going to keep surprising us!
"It's very important to take every day as like a series of waves."
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