Anya Taylor-Joy

Overview

Born
April 16, 1996 · Miami, Florida, USA
Birth name
Anya Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy
Height
5′ 8″ (1.73 m)

Biography

Anya-Josephine Marie 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 Witch (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 was born in Miami, the youngest of six children. Her father is Scottish was born in South America, and her mother is Spanish-English and was born in Zambia in Africa, to an English diplomat father and a Spanish mother from Barcelona. Anya lived her childhood between Argentina and England. Her father was a banker and a powerboat racer, and her mother is a psychologist. Anya was raised in Argentina until the age of six, then moved to London, where the family lived in Victoria. She attended Northlands School in Buenos Aires, then preparatory school Hill House and Queen's Gate School in London, and is also a former ballet dancer. 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 Witch (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.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

Family

Spouse
Children
Parents
Relatives

Trademarks

Large, wide-set eyes
High cheekbones
Her British accent.

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 mother held her hand in front of Anya's eyes. But she was able to peek through her mother's 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.

Quotes

You do not mess with my characters.
It sounds like such a cliché, but I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to do what I love.
It's strange, but for better or for worse-and I'm hoping it's for better-I tend to forget my accomplishments as soon as they happen.
[on why her parents decided to move from Argentina] My Dad's Scottish-Argentine and my Mum's African-Spanish - and the political situation in Argentina was getting so dire that they wanted their children to grow up in an environment without fear. We all really resented them for it and now we look back, we're like thank you so much because they gave us such an opportunity in life.
I was born in Miami but we moved straight away to Argentina where most of my family still lives, and I was there until I was six, and then we moved to England, and I learnt English when I was eight. I was stubborn and I wanted to go home and I didn't understand London at all. I'd come from a place where everything was green and everything was expensive and there were animals everywhere and all of a sudden, I came here [in England] and I was like 'what the f*ck is going on?'