TMS Muse of the Week: Anya Taylor-Joy
(Larry Busacca)
I remember Keira Knightley once revealed during a radio interview that there was a period throughout the late 2000s and the early 2010s where she, Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway were regularly up for the same roles/films. Currently, I sense this might be the case with Zendaya, Florence Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy. Much like the previous starlets, these are the three actresses in young Hollywood with the most exposure, hype and credibility. All with different personalities and followings [and all amusingly featured in Denis Villeneuve’s contemporary Dune franchise]. As a longtime movie lover who has seen many young stars come and go, these ladies’ successes are yet another case of me feeling my age, and Anya in particular. I can still remember when the world was introduced to the blonde Latina as the teenage lead of Robert Eggers’ critical hit The Witch (2015). Much like Keira, Anya fits perfectly in costume dramas, but also has enough range for other genres like horror, coming-of-age tales, and dark comedy. Eggers’ artsy horror-fantasy allowed the soft, wide-eyed ingénue to leave her initial gig as a fashion model to achieve her real goals as a performer. She followed up with M. Night Shyamalan’s Split (2016) and Glass (2019), Cory Finley’s Thoroughbreds (2017) and Autumn de Wilde’s Emma (2020) in film; along with a recurring role on BBC’s “Peaky Blinders” (2019-2022) and as the star of Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” (2020) on TV.
(Eric Guillemain)
As is the case with most beautiful movie stars with past modeling experience, Anya has been the face of various brands such as Dior and Tiffany’s. What’s impressive is that—similar to fellow blondes Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer—Anya’s respect and popularity through her acting has overshadowed her origins in fashion. There was a brief stumble with Josh Boone’s disastrous The New Mutants (2020) and Edgar Wright’s disappointing Last Night in Soho (2021), but she bounced back by reuniting with Eggers on his Vikings epic The Northman (2022) and starring in Mark Mylod’s ensemble satire The Menu (2022). She’s even the voice of Princess Peach in Aaron Horvath & Michael Jelenic’s animated blockbuster The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023). It’s safe to say Anya’s presently one of the biggest critical darlings in cinema, having worked with directing legends like Villeneuve, Shyamalan and George Miller, and receiving awards for her work in The Witch, Emma and “Queen’s Gambit.” She escaped the ‘nepo baby’ discourse after people discovered her upper-class upbringing [which would make her a ‘trust fund baby’ more than nepotistic anyways]. Her love life is lowkey, currently married to actor-musician Malcolm McRae since 2022 and previously in a relationship with another model, Eoin Macken in 2016-18. And though audiences are currently rejecting Miller’s well reviewed Mad Max prequel Furiosa, Anya, the face of the title character, hasn’t been receiving any of the blame. In fact, my biggest issue with the movie is that she doesn’t appear until over an hour into the runtime.
The Argentine-English actress is rumored to be in consideration for Pedro Almodóvar’s next film, also supposedly planned to be in English. I feel like it would be a huge missed opportunity if fans don’t get to hear her speak in Spanish, her native language, in a future movie. Anya has proven one more than once she isn’t just a pretty face and should be taking full advantage of her versatility. Let’s see where else she can go from here.
