Six Fun Facts About the Lovely Anya Taylor-Joy

Anya Taylor-Joy is one of the biggest names and faces in Hollywood right now. She made her film debut as Thomasin in the critically acclaimed 2015 horror film The Witch and has gone on to star as Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit. She’s certainly earned her position as a huge star…But who is Anya Taylor-Joy on a personal level? Let’s find out more about her with these fascinating facts! 

English is Her Second Language

Anya Taylor-Joy has a particularly fascinating heritage. She was born in Miami, but shortly after her family moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she spent the first six years of her life. Then, the family relocated to London, and finally to New York. Seeing as she spent her formative years in Argentina, Spanish was her first language. In fact, she has said that for her first two years in London, she refused to even learn English at all because she was so traumatized from having to leave Argentina. Her parents also have interesting backgrounds: Her mother was born in Zambia to a Spanish mother and English diplomat father, and her father is Argentine, but of English and Scottish descent.

She’s Not Great With Technology

Anya Taylor-Joy is self-reportedly bad at technology. “I’m terrible with the internet,” she said. “I’m terrible at anything that’s remotely Millennial. It’s awful.” In fact, she didn’t learn of her BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination until her fans began alerting her about it way after the fact!

She Hated School

Anya Taylor-Joy isn’t silent about the fact that she really didn’t like her time in school. She has said that she was bullied so badly that she left school at 16 to focus more on acting. “I was too English to be Argentine, too Argentine to be English, too American to be anything. The kids just didn’t understand me in any shape or form,” she said. “I used to get locked in lockers. I spent a lot of time in school crying in bathrooms.”

She Was a Shoo-in for Her First Lead Role

In her first big acting gig, Anya Taylor-Joy played the role of Thomasin in the 2015 horror film The Witch. She was reportedly so nervous that she stayed up all night reading the script before recording her audition tape. She was convinced that she wouldn’t get the part because she didn’t have the right look, but the director had other ideas; hers was the first tape he watched, and he decided on her before even viewing any of the other candidates’ tapes.

She Started Out as Model

Anya Taylor-Joy was scouted by a modeling agency at age 17, but the circumstances under which she signed were more than a little amusing. She was reportedly just walking by Harrods Department Store in London one day when she caught the eye of Sarah Doukas, the founder of Storm Model Management who has signed huge names like Cara Delevingne and Kate Moss. Only, Taylor-Joy assumed that Doukas was a stalker at first when she saw her car following her, so she tried to run away. Someone then yelled out from the car, “If you stop you won’t regret it … please, there’s someone in this car who would really like to meet you.” Taylor-Joy ended up signing with the agency the next day.

She Fell in Love With Cinema While Watching Harry Potter

The first movie that Taylor-Joy watched in theaters after moving to London was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 2002. Although she didn’t speak any English at the time, she was still captivated by the film, particularly by the scenes involving the basilisk. It was from then on that she knew she wanted to be involved in the world of cinema.