‘I just put on their skin,’ actress says of characters
There’s a consistency to the characters that Anya TaylorJoy has played in her short but acclaimed acting career — they each have a thrilling, deeply intriguing component to their personalities.
And these unique perspectives begin forming the moment she starts reading a script. “They become voices in my head,” Taylor-Joy says.
The latest of those voices can be heard, and seen, in the film “Split,” a horror movie by M. Night Shyamalan (“The Sixth Sense”) that opened Friday. In it, Taylor-Joy plays Casey Cooke, one of three young women who are abducted by a man suffering from dissociative identity disorder and his 24 personalities.
But it’s her role in an earlier horror movie that became the 20- year-old ArgentineanBritish- American actress’ big break. Taylor-Joy surprised movie lovers and critics with her portrayal of Thomasin in the period horror movie “The Witch” last year.
Her debut prompted The Guardian newspaper to considere Taylor-Joy a “startling newcomer” with a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination. Vanity Fair wrote that the young woman “could be destined for big things.”
Taylor-Joy recently talked to the Chronicle about her acting method and how doing these roles has helped her to realize that she is “a pretty dark chick.”
Q: How would you describe Casey and her role in “Split”?
A: Casey is very quiet, very observant. Her internal world is so deep, and there are so many layers to it. She really chooses her words; everything is very delivered, and I was really excited to portray that on the big screen.
The difference between Casey and the other girls is that she is just more prepared for the situation, unfortunately, because of the negative things that happened in her life that no one should ever have to experience.
The other girls are very reactive. I think they react the way 99 percent of people react if they were in that situation, kidnapped by a man with 24 personalities. But we all get separated very quickly, and Casey is playing the long game. She’s smart; she’s really understanding, and she’s actually working with the personalities of Kevin to get her out, which I think is so incredibly perceptive and intelligent. Q: Do you have something in common with Casey that helped you create the character?
A: With Casey, I share some similarities, but her personality is very different from mine. She is quiet, and I am the opposite. I am bubbly and talkative.
Q: What do you mean by similarities?
A: I find acting for me is as if they (the characters) live inside my head. I hear them, and I just put on their skin, if that makes sense. I laugh differently, I cry differently, I kind of let them take over my body for a little bit, and then I take it back at the end of the day. It was really interesting to be in the game and become quiet like Casey.
With Casey, I really feel for her because she has created this world, like, in order to cope with what is going on in her physical reality. She has pushed the inner world, under a thousand blankets, under a thousand gallons of water. She wants to go unnoticed; she doesn’t want to call attention, and that was a very interesting thing for me to experience. It was interesting to see how different people react differently to trauma.
Q: How was Casey different from Thomasin, your role in “The Witch”?
A: Thomasin was my first character. In “The Witch,” I didn’t know anything, so everything was new to me. I was a lot harder on myself because I felt that there was one way of acting and that my way wasn’t the right way.
I was, “Oh my God! Everyone else is taking notes and reading the scripts over and over again.” I read it, like, twice, and I just felt it. I think that with Thomasin, I knew what I was doing, but I doubted myself a lot. I was thinking that I was clearly doing it wrong. Then, when I was doing Morgan (for the 2016 film “Morgan”), I realized that there isn’t only one way of acting. Q: What is your way?
A: I think I act very instinctual. I hear and feel, and then I just let (the characters) out. It’s like I ask the character what they want from me, and I just do it and react. When I got to work on Casey, I felt a lot more freedom. We are all human beings, and confidence might not be the right word, but I definitely felt more comfortable. When I met Casey, I just needed to let her take over. Now I can relax a bit without having to go home and force myself to read the script and make notes because that’s just not the way I feel it.
Q: You are not a school kind of actor …
A: I think I work with them in an emotional way. I just try to spend time in their heads and in their voices. Sometimes I just involved myself in thinking like, “How do they move their eyes? How do they look at the moon?”
Q: How active is your imagination?
A: My imagination is way too wild. Someone asked me the other day, “How do you feed your imagination?” and I was like, “Feed it? I am trying to starve it.” It’s way too intense for me sometimes. I am always lost in a different world.
Q: Your personal background is like a melting pot of Latin America, North America and Europe. How do you choose to describe yourself?
A: When I was a little girl, people always asked me where I was from, and I was, “Oh my God! Now it starts, OK.” My father is Argentine-Scottish; my mother is from Spain and England, and I was born in the United States, which is great for my acting career because I can work here; I have a passport. So I am very lucky. Then I grew up in Argentina and moved to London when I was 6. Q: What is home for you?
A: I have the luck that my mother always told me from a very young age, because we moved a lot around countries, that home is wherever you hang your hat. You have to make a home for yourself, a home within you.
When I was little, something that really upset me was that I really didn’t belong from any one place. You know, whenever I was in Argentina, I was the English girl. When I was in London, I was the Argentine-American, and I guess am not American enough to be American. So I have had a hard time with that.
And then I found movies; I found that that is home, whatever set I am on is where I feel more comfortable because I know that I am exactly what I am supposed to be. I know that I belong there. I am very grateful that I found my art.
Q: It’s interesting that you have chosen to act all these psychologically complex characters in thriller and horror movies. Do you have an affinity for it?
A: Yes, absolutely, but it’s strange because I never thought about it that way. In hindsight, I can look back and see, wow! I am a pretty dark chick. (Laughs). I have made some pretty dark movies!
But when I was doing it, when I am choosing my projects, it doesn’t feel like something that has that level of thought to it. I don’t overthink it. Again, I live my life the same way that I act, purely on impulse and instinct. More like if I have a feeling, then this is my story, and I am doing it, whether it’s a comedy or a romantic drama because if I like the character, there is nothing you can do to keep me away.