Anya Taylor-Joy

Anya Taylor-Joy is an actress known for her distinctive screen presence and performances across horror, drama, period films and major Hollywood productions. Born Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy on 16 April 1996 in Miami, Florida, she spent parts of her childhood in Argentina and the United Kingdom before beginning her acting career as a teenager. Taylor-Joy first attracted major attention with Robert Eggers' psychological horror film The Witch (2015). She played Thomasin, a teenage girl living with her deeply religious family in 17th-century New England as increasingly disturbing events begin to tear the family apart. Her performance became one of the film's defining elements and immediately established her as an exciting new talent. She followed The Witch with roles in films including Morgan (2016) and Barry (2016), before reaching an even larger audience with M. Night Shyamalan's Split (2016). Taylor-Joy played Casey Cooke, one of three young women kidnapped by a man with multiple personalities, played by James McAvoy. She returned as Casey in Glass (2019), which brought together characters from Split and Shyamalan's earlier film Unbreakable. Taylor-Joy continued to build an unusually varied filmography. She starred in the dark comedy thriller Thoroughbreds (2017), appeared in the period drama Emma (2020) as Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse and joined an ensemble cast for Edgar Wright's psychological horror film Last Night in Soho (2021). One of the biggest breakthroughs of her career came on television with The Queen's Gambit (2020). Taylor-Joy played chess prodigy Beth Harmon in the Netflix miniseries, following the character from a difficult childhood through her rise in the competitive world of international chess. The Queen's Gambit became a global success, while Taylor-Joy's performance earned widespread acclaim and major award recognition. The role demonstrated her ability to carry a character-driven drama and transformed her into an internationally recognised star. She returned to darker territory with The Menu (2022), starring opposite Ralph Fiennes and Nicholas Hoult. Taylor-Joy played Margot, a young woman attending an exclusive dining experience on a remote island where the evening gradually develops into something far more sinister. Her move into large-scale action cinema continued when she took over the role of Imperator Furiosa in George Miller's Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024). Playing the younger version of the character previously portrayed by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, Taylor-Joy led the post-apocalyptic action epic alongside Chris Hemsworth. Her other credits include The New Mutants (2020), Amsterdam (2022), The Northman (2022) and voice work as Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). Taylor-Joy has developed a career that is difficult to place into a single genre. She has moved comfortably between independent horror, literary adaptations, psychological thrillers, television drama, animation and blockbuster action while maintaining the distinctive screen presence that first drew attention to her in The Witch. From the unsettling atmosphere of The Witch and Split to the elegance of Emma, the phenomenal success of The Queen's Gambit and the brutal wasteland of Furiosa, Anya Taylor-Joy has become one of the most versatile and recognisable performers of her generation.