Despite busy year, Anya Taylor-Joy just getting started
In a span of seven months this year alone, Anya Taylor-Joy played a meddling British brat in “Emma,” a Russian mutant with teleportation powers in the latest “X-Men” film, and an American orphan who turns out to be a chess phenom who can checkmate grownmen by the time she’s 8 in “The Queen’sGambit.”
She’s just getting started. The 24-year-old just wrapped shooting “The Northman” alongsideNicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard, WillemDafoe and EthanHawke. In October, Warner Bros. announced that Taylor-Joy will play Furiosa in the highly anticipated prequel to “MadMax: Fury Road.” Oh, and she’ll have another movie coming out in April: EdgarWright’s psychological thriller, “LastNight in Soho.”
“When Iwas a kid, all I wanted to dowas go to Narnia and, you know, fly to Neverland and go to all of these incredible places,” Taylor-Joy recently told The Associated Press, which named her one of its Breakthrough Entertainers of 2020. “And nowas an adult, I’m like, ‘I live in Narnia. Like, this is amazing.’ ”
Taylor-Joy is “the busiest person I’ve ever met,” said MarielleHeller, who plays Taylor Joy’s foster mother in “The Queen’sGambit” and directed “A Beautiful Day in theNeighborhood” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
“I don’t knowhowshe’s doing so many projects at the same time. It’s really kind of mind-blowing,”
Heller said.
Netflix says “The Queen’sGambit” was its biggest scripted limited series ever and “Emma” received critical and box office acclaim, as did her big screen debut as a lead in Robert Eggers’ 2015 horror hit “TheWitch,” whichwon Taylor-Joy a Gotham Independent Film Award for breakthrough actor. She’s also drawn praise for her performances in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Split,” the dark comedy/thriller “Thoroughbreds” and BBC One’s “Peaky Blinders.”
All that success could easily have gone to TaylorJoy’s head, butHeller said she has managed to stay
humble.
“The danger of young people having a career take off when they’re really young— you can turn into a jerk. But she hasn’t,” Heller said. “She’s a real joy to work with. You don’t get that many roles back-toback if you aren’t somebody who’s good towork with.”
Taylor-Joy is sowellliked among those who’ve directed her, they’ve formed what’s almost a club of adoration, calling each other and talking about howshe’s doing, said Autumn deWilde, who directed Taylor-Joy in “Emma.”
“We share a common bond in thatwe just 100% believe in her andwe’re so
excited to see howour ideas will flowerwith her,” deWilde said. “She’s not an empty vessel. She’s a neverending box of drawers and secret passageways.”
Part of what makes Taylor-Joy so magnetic is her lack of narcissism, she said.
“A great photograph makes you wish youwere there. I think she makes you wish youwere there watching herwork. That’s because she’s not looking at herself in the mirror, she’s looking at the person she’s acting with, she’s feeling me through the lens as a director,” deWilde said.
Taylor-Joywas born in Miami and largely grewup in Argentina. She only
spoke Spanish when her parentsmoved her and her five siblings to England, where Taylor-Joy struggled to fit in and learn English.
Although she has escaped the bullying she struggled with at the time, she’s still learning howto be kind to herself.
“A friend of mine once told me, ‘Youwould never speak to your friends the way that you speak about yourself,’ whichwas huge,” she said. “It’s such a difficult journey for every individual to become friends with themselves. Some people are born and they just have it and I applaud those people. Iwas not one of them.”
Though she says her
skyrocketing fame “can be a bit intense,” the journey has been “a beautiful process.”
“I have a ton of energy, and I think this career and the hours of this career requires, they makeme tired enough to be sane, which I appreciate,” she said.
“Making films is hard. Any film that is made, it’s a miracle that that filmwas able to be witnessed by other people. The fact that it even made it there is a baby miracle, andworking with so many talented people and so many different people to make that come true and come to life, it’sweirdly life-affirming. It just makes me really happy.”