Anya Taylor-Joy

Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy was born on the 6th of April 1996, and at her young age is already an award-winning actress. Since her film debut in 2015, the Argentinian-English actress has been awarded a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award among other notable awards and additional nominations. Anya has also been featured in Time Magazine’s Next 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future. Anya is known for her role in The Witch (2015) which was her first leading role followed by the horror movie Split (2016) and its sequel Glass (2019). She has since also appeared in Peaky Blinders (2019-2022) and the highly acclaimed Netflix series The Queen's Gambit (2020). 

Education

 Anya spent her early childhood in Argentina and then relocated with her family to London. She was educated at Hill House International Junior School and quickly picked up the English language, going on to Queen's Gate School. Although she enjoyed acting in productions at Queens Gate, she left the school at age 16 after being bullied. At age 17 Anya was scouted by Sarah Doukas, founder of modeling agency Storm Management. She signed with the agency under the agreement that acting would always be her priority if the two were to clash. It was during a shoot through the agency that she was noticed by Downton Abbey actor Allen Leech who introduced her to his agent. Her acting career began from there. 

Fun Facts 

Her birth in Miami was by chance as her parents were holidaying in the U.S. at the time, and she retained a U.S. citizenship because of this in addition to being a UK citizen. As mentioned before, she is bilingual and speaks both Spanish and English. She has suffered from insomnia since childhood. She rose to fame in her acting career despite not ever having formal acting training. She can play the ukulele and electric guitar and is a trained ballet dancer. She is the youngest of 6 siblings. She was rejected after her first professional audition, which was to play a young Angelia Jolie in Maleficent. Her fans often refer to her as a Scream Queen because she is frequently cast in dark roles for her movies. She spent a long time living a vegan lifestyle as she felt it was the most ethical. She sees great importance in keeping her private life out of the public eye, however, it is known that she was at one point engaged to Irish actor Eoin Macken and was recently photographed kissing musician Malcolm McRae. 

What’s next for Anya Taylor-Joy? 

She recently starred as Illyana Rasputin in The New Mutants (2020). She has been confirmed to play in the prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road called Furiosa, as well as The Northman, and will be the voice of Princess Peach in an upcoming Mario film. It seems this young starlet who shot to fame so quickly is showing no signs of slowing down.