11:30 am PST 1/6/2021
in
Bryn Sandberg
She is one of the biggest stars of the year, enjoying a career high after five busy years as an actress. But the 24-year-old is in no hurry to stop and catch her breath.
Two years ago, Anya Taylor-Joy was in the middle of filming both Peaky Blinders and The Dark Crystal when she heard that Without God Writer and director Scott Frank wanted to talk to her about a new project. There was still no script, but there was a book – and just hours after getting your hands on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel The Queen’s Gambit, she devoured its 243 pages. “From the second I opened the book, I fell in love with Beth”, says the actress of the fictional chess prodigy. “I felt really seen by her, and I could see myself in her too.”
As soon as she finished the book, she ran to find Frank at a nearby Italian restaurant in London. Unable to hide her enthusiasm, she yelled at Frank as she entered the restaurant, “Not everything is plaid and she has to have red hair!“A much more calm Frank replied,” Yes, it’s not just about chess, and you’re right, she has to have red hair. Sit down.”
The 24-year-old star stayed with Beth Harmon, a young woman from the 1960s who struggles with addiction by competing in chess tournaments around the world. Although Taylor-Joy says she is more carefree than her on-screen counterpart, “in our essence, we are very, very similar people,” she says. “One of the main things I connected with her was her inherent loneliness. I always had that, especially when I was growing up.”
Born in Miami to a large Latin American family, Taylor-Joy spent much of the first six years of her life in Argentina before moving to England. Although she grew up as a tomboy, her entry into Hollywood came as a model, a career that was born when she decided to practice wearing high heels while taking her dog for a walk. One day, on a walk through London, she noticed a big black car behind her. “I was like, ‘I watched a lot 24,“She remembers. It turns out she was a top modeling scout, and Taylor-Joy signed with her the next day.” I’m very happy that the story ends this way and not with me being kidnapped. “
Her modeling career quickly turned into an actress, and Taylor-Joy landed her first major role in the 2015 Robert Eggers horror film The witch, which quickly became his business card in the industry. She skipped formal acting training along the way. “I think the way Beth is intuitive about chess, I am an intuitive actress,” she says. Taylor-Joy’s instincts clearly paid off, as she landed more than 20 roles in just five years, with 2019 being the most crowded of all. She had a day off between filming Wilde’s Autumn Emma and Edgar Wright’s psychological thriller Night spent in Soho, and then another single day between that film and The Queen’s Gambit. “I was like, ‘What I’m doing is crazy’, but I love the characters and I couldn’t give up on them,” she says.
Without an adequate break between projects, Taylor-Joy had to quickly learn the game of chess from renowned author and chess expert Bruce Pandolfini. “I call him my chess sensei,” she says. Playing like a prodigy meant that she needed at least theoretical knowledge of chess. “People who love the game love it with a lot of passion and I didn’t feel like I could, in good conscience, show up and just pretend.” The games were carefully choreographed – even Taylor-Joy’s delicate hand movements as she took the pieces – and based on real historical matches. She would memorize the movements minutes before a scene. “I’m very, very grateful to my short-term memory for that,” she says, jokingly, “because I think it’s Scott.”
Adding to the challenge was the fact that she had to play Russian games over the course of several nighttime recordings. It ended at 5 am and often went straight to local clubs in Berlin to dance for a few hours as a launch. “I processed everything I needed and then came home, slept very well and was ready for the next day,” she says. But Taylor-Joy was not just showing up and saying her lines – she also had to make ample contribution to her character, like the hair color she insisted she have. “I wanted her to stand out like a bruised finger,” she explains, noting that she always wanted to be a redhead. “One of the main conversations I have with my agent is: ‘I’m going to dye my hair red’. And she said, ‘Oh, Anya. Not today.’ I change the color of my hair so often that it is very difficult for my publicist or my agent to make people understand that I am a person. “
Her role as Beth Harmon, however, may have changed that forever – the show is now rated as Netflix’s most watched limited series. And Taylor-Joy shows no signs of slowing down. With a list of early projects that includes Wright’s Night spent in Soho and Eggers’ The Nordic, both debuting in 2021, she recently landed what may be her biggest role: a furious young woman in the George Miller film Mad Max by-product. She will also meet Frank again for another adaptation of a novel, this time by Vladimir Nabokov Laughter in the dark. “I was like, ‘Ready, ready, where do you want me?’ “Taylor-Joy says of when she was approached with the idea.” Honestly, I have so much energy that I am grateful to be part of an industry that tires me out. “
This story first appeared in an independent January issue of The Hollywood Reporter. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.