LOS ANGELES: 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 grown men by the time shes 8 in The Queens Gambit.
Shes just getting started.
The 24-year-old just wrapped shooting The Northman alongside Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard, Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke. In October, Warner Bros. announced that Taylor-Joy will play Furiosa in the highly anticipated prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road. Oh, and shell have another movie coming out in April: Edgar Wrights psychological thriller, Last Night in Soho.
When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was 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 now as an adult, Im like, I live in Narnia. Like, this is amazing.
Taylor-Joy is the busiest person Ive ever met, said Marielle Heller, who plays Taylor Joys foster mother in The Queens Gambit and directed A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Can You Ever Forgive Me?
I dont know how shes doing so many projects at the same time. Its really kind of mind-blowing, Heller said.
Netflix says The Queens Gambit 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 The Witch, which won Taylor-Joy a Gotham Independent Film Award for breakthrough actor. Shes also drawn praise for her performances in M. Night Shyamalans Split, the dark comedy/thriller Thoroughbreds and BBC Ones Peaky Blinders.
All that success could easily have gone to Taylor-Joys head, but Heller said she has managed to stay humble.
The danger of young people having a career take off when theyre really young you can turn into a jerk. But she hasnt, Heller said. Shes a real joy to work with. You dont get that many roles back-to-back if you arent somebody whos good to work with.
Taylor-Joy is so well-liked among those whove directed her, theyve formed whats almost a club of adoration, calling each other and talking about how shes doing, said Autumn de Wilde, who directed Taylor-Joy in Emma.
We share a common bond in that we just 100% believe in her and were so excited to see how our ideas will flower with her, de Wilde said. Shes not an empty vessel. Shes a never-ending box of drawers and secret passageways.
Part of what makes Taylor-Joy so magnetic is her complete lack of narcissism, she said.
A great photograph makes you wish you were there. I think she makes you wish you were there watching her work. Thats because shes not looking at herself in the mirror, shes looking at the person shes acting with, shes feeling me through the lens as a director, de Wilde said.
Taylor-Joy was born in Miami and largely grew up in Argentina. She only spoke Spanish when her parents moved 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 how to be kind to herself.
A friend of mine once told me, You would never speak to your friends the way that you speak about yourself, which was huge,” she said. Its 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. I was 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 make me tired enough to be sane, which I appreciate, she said.
Making films is hard. Any film that is made, its a miracle that that film was able to be witnessed by other people. The fact that it even made it there is a baby miracle, and working with so many talented people and so many different people to make that come true and come to life, its weirdly life-affirming. It just makes me really happy.
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