Lately, the social media has been buzzing about the lovely British-Argentine actress Anya Taylor-Joy and her new remarkable role in the Netflix series “Queen’s Gambit,” where she played a genius chess player who outsmarted all her rivals and became the world champion. Of course, the Queen’s Gambit is just the tip of the iceberg, as Anya’s been very busy with her acting career.
1) Anya Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy was born into an immigrant family in Miami on 16 April 1996. Her mother grew up in the UK, and her father has Argentine and Scottish roots, so Anya spent a lot of time in London and Buenos Aires.
2) Anya spoke Spanish when she was little and only began learning English after the family moved from Buenos Aires to London.
3) She is the oldest of the six kids. Can you imagine having five younger siblings?
4) Anya started modeling or rather posing when she was still in high school, asking her mom to take cute pictures of her. Eventually, this passion grew into a career. She signed a contract and was almost immediately featured in advertising campaigns for various brands, magazines, and eventually even music videos.
5) Later, Anya realized that she was born to be an actress, so the modeling business was put on a backburner. The future star played her first role in 2014 in a small episode of the movie “Vampire Academy.” Right around that time, she appeared in the TV series “Endeavour.”
6) Fame was waiting for her right around the corner. After the release of the mystical horror “The Witch,” where Anya played a possessed girl, she basically woke up famous.
7) A couple of years later, Anya was crowned the “scream queen” due to her amazing roles in horror films and thrillers. One of the best movies Anya has starred in was this small, totally innocuous thriller by an up-and-coming director M. Night Shyamalan called “Split.” Maybe you’ve heard of it.
8) In 2017, Anya Taylor-Joy was nominated for a BAFTA Award in the “Rising Star” category, and throughout her career, at least so far, she’s won 8 prestigious film festival awards.
9) In 2017, Anya played Illyana Rasputin (Colossus’s little sister) in a comic book movie, The New Mutants, which was supposed to release in 2018. Due to some scheduling issues and spontaneous reshoots, the film was delayed multiple times until it got a release in August of 2020. In the past two years, the rights to all the X-Men characters went back to Marvel after they bought FOX, so technically, Anya is now part of the MCU!
10) Without a doubt, The Queen’s Gambit has become one of the most important projects for Anya. Maybe it’s because she pretty much plays herself in the series — a young girl who quickly achieves incredible success due to her talent.
11) In an interview, Anya admitted that she was working on many projects at the same time, so she had to prioritize and periodically take a break because otherwise, she’d definitely bet burnt out.
12) Anya is supposed to play the young Furiosa in the “Mad Max” prequel, but the producers are keeping a tight lid on that project. All we know is that we’re already getting excited to see Anya on the big screen again!
Now, all we can do is watch the Queen’s Gambit again and wait for her new projects to come out.
