Anya Taylor-Joy
Anya Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy(born 16 April 1996) is an American-born Argentine-British actress and model.She made her debut in the fantasy series Atlantis (2015), before rising to prominence with her performance as Thomasin in the period horror film The Witch (2015). The latter role earned her several accolades, including an Empire Award and a nomination for a Saturn Award. She gained further attention for her performances as Casey Cooke in the psychological horror films Split (2016) and Glass (2019), and Lily Reynolds in the black comedy Thoroughbreds (2017). In 2017, she received the Cannes Film Festival’s Trophée Chopard and a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Her Argentinian heritage makes Taylor-Joy the first Latina to ever win the Golden Globe for best actress in her category.
Taylor-Joy had starring roles in the BBC One drama miniseries The Miniaturist (2017), the BBC One crime drama series Peaky Blinders (2019), and the Netflix fantasy drama series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019). She earned critical acclaim for her performances as Emma Woodhouse in the Jane Austen adaptation Emma. (2020) and for playing Beth Harmon in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit (2020). In 2021, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her performance in The Queen’s Gambit, becoming the first Latina to win in that category.
When Taylor-Joy turned six, her family moved from Buenos Aires to London, so the actress has British citizenship in addition to her Argentinian and American passports.
Although she recalls the move to London as being “traumatic” at first, according to The Wall Street Journal, today she is grateful for her upbringing in the British capital, telling WSJ that, “Being a Londoner informs so much about my sense of humour.”
As the lead in Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, chess prodigy Beth Harmon, Taylor-Joy was watched by a record-breaking 62 million household viewers during the first 28 days of the series’ release, making it the most watched scripted limited series on Netflix.