Anya Taylor-Joy

Anya Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy (born 16 April 1996) is an actress. She is best known for her roles as Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit (2020), Thomasin in the period horror film The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (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 was born in Argentina, of English and Scottish descent, and her mother 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 an international banker but gave it up to race motorboats, 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 the preparatory school Hill House in Kensington, before attending the Northlands School in Argentina 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 VVitch: A New-England Folktale (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.

Taylor-Joy is attached to star in Nosferatu, a remake of the film of the same name, to be directed by Eggers in her second collaboration with him. She will also star in The Sea Change.