Who is Anya Taylor-Joy?
Anya Taylor-Joy is a British-Argentine actress. She is best known for her roles as Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit (2020), Thomasin in the period horror film The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015), as Casey Cooke in the horror-thriller Split (2016), and as Lily in the black comedy thriller Thoroughbreds (2017). She has been the recipient of the Cannes Film Festival's Trophée Chopard and was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Anya's dream of becoming an actress came when she was very young and it finally became possible when she was offered a modeling job. It wasn't long until Taylor-Joy received her first part in the Show Business. When she was fourteen, she used her savings to move to New York, and at 16, she left school to pursue acting.
Anya's outstanding performance as Thomasin in Robert Eggers' period horror film The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015), and the positive reviews it got at the Sundance festival revealed her incredible potential to the world; it was widely released and viewed in 2016. She then starred as the title character in the thriller Morgan (2016), directed Luke Scott and also starring Kate Mara. She also starred in Vikram Gandhi's film Barry, which focused on a young Barack Obama in 1981 New York City. Taylor-Joy played one of Obama's close friends. In 2017, she headlined M. Night Shyamalan's horror-thriller film Split (2016), playing Casey Cooke, a girl abducted by a mysterious man with split personalities. In 2019, she reprised her role as Casey in the film Glass. Anya was also the lead actress in the music video for Skrillex's remix of GTA's song Red Lips. She was nominated for the 2017 BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Trivia
- Spoke only Spanish until she was 8 years old, when she learned English after moving to London. She is fluent in Spanish and English. When she speaks in Spanish, she has a noticeable accent.
- Though primarily seen with dark hair, she is a natural blonde.
- She can play the ukulele and the guitar.
- The first film she watched in cinema after moving to England was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). Although she didn't speak English at the time, she said that it didn't matter. During the Basilisk scenes, her hand was held in front of her eyes. But she was able to peek through the fingers, which gave her the opportunity to witness what was going on. She described it as the moment that made her fall in love with cinema.
- Aside from taking a drama class in elementary school, she admitted that she had little acting experience prior to starring in the film The Witch.