Although she made her feature film debut in 2015 with the horror flick The Witch, it wasn’t until the phenomenal success of The Queen’s Gambit in 2020 that Anya Taylor-Joy truly became a household name.
With a father who’s reportedly English and Scottish, and a mother of Anglo-Argentine descent, the actress’ real name isn’t even Anya Taylor-Joy. It’s Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy – a fact that even her then-boyfriend, now husband, Malcolm McRae, wasn’t aware of for a time.
Anya shuttled between Buenos Aires and London as a kid, before landing on Hollywood, where she has become a huge star. She is hailed as a wildly talented actor.
(
GC Images)
Born to Jennifer Marina Joy-Marancho and Dennis Taylor, Anya Taylor-Joy is the youngest of six siblings. At the age of 16, she wrote her parents a letter informing them that she was dropping out of school to pursue a career in acting.
Having raised five kids already, Anya revealed her parents were “tired” by the time she came around. In a 2020 interview with NME, she said: “My parents were tired! They’d already raised five children. When I came around, and I was very wilful and knew what I wanted to do, they were like, ‘Go for it!’”
Anya’s father had six children — two with Anya’s mom Jennifer, and four with his first wife.
Born in Miami as a “fluke” while her parents “vacationed” there, Anya lived in Argentina till the age of six, after which the family moved to London, owing to the restless political situation in the country.
(
WWD via Getty Images)
The Mad Max Furiosa actress was bullied for her looks as a child – and she has her mother to thank for supporting her through the rough phase. In a candid 2022 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Anya shared: “I was very, very lucky with my parents because when I was bullied for my looks, my mom always said, ‘You look at the inside of somebody. You don’t look at class, you don’t look at anything like that. You don’t look at what they do for a job. It’s just: ‘Do you like that person’s heart?'”
Anya’s road to discovery was an astonishing one. In a 2021 interview with CRASH magazine, the Peaky Blinders star shared: “Well I started modelling when I was sixteen years old. I was walking my dog in heels one day.
“It was my first time ever wearing heels, and I was basically scouted in the street. On my third shoot, I met an actor who put me in touch with his agent and it all started from there.”
A fluent Spanish speaker, Anya has trained herself to sleep for a very short period of time. In an interview with Vogue, The Menu actress revealed her battle with insomnia since the age of seven: “I had this really strange notion of sleep – it was like being dead but not dead – so I trained myself not to sleep for very long… Three, four hours and I’m sweet. It helps with the schedule.”
(
Getty Images for Tiffany & Co.)
It’s not just her professional life that constantly makes waves. The 28-year-old powerhouse secretly tied the knot with her rockstar boyfriend of over two years, Malcolm McRae, in “an intimate courthouse wedding,” in New Orleans, as reported by Page Six in July 2022.
The pair then went public by having a beautiful Venetian wedding in 2023 that was attended by 150 guests. Wearing a custom-made Dior creation, Anya was photographed looking breath-taking.
Anya first publicly spoke about her talented hubby to British Vogue in 2022, sharing: “I said to my partner the other day that he was my hobby. I’ve finally found someone who will happily sit in silence with me reading. We’re basically 80 years old and 7 at the same time, and it works really well.”
Her latest film, The Gorge, in which she stars alongside Top Gun: Maverick star Miles Teller, released on Apple TV+ on February 14.
The Gorge is now streaming on Apple TV+
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply