Anya Taylor-Joy

Anya Taylor-Joy Bio

Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy (born April 16, 1996) is an American actress known for her work across film and television. Born in Miami, Florida, she was raised in Buenos Aires and London, a multicultural upbringing that shaped her fluency in both Spanish and English. She first drew widespread attention with her leading role in the horror film The Witch (2015) and has since built a career defined by performances in Split, Emma, The Queen’s Gambit, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Her portrayal of chess prodigy Beth Harmon earned her a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, cementing her standing as one of the most compelling leading actors of her generation.

Early Life and Background

Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy was born on April 16, 1996, in Miami, Florida, to Dennis Alan Taylor, a former banker and offshore powerboat racer, and Jennifer Marina Joy, a psychologist. Her Miami birth came about unexpectedly, as her parents had been vacationing in the city at the time. Because of her American birthplace, she holds United States citizenship under jus soli nationality law, and she also holds British citizenship through her family.

Taylor-Joy is the youngest of six siblings, with four older half-siblings from her father’s previous marriage. After her early years in Miami, the family relocated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she attended Northlands School and became fluent in Spanish. When she was six years old, the family moved again, this time to the Victoria area of London, where she enrolled at Hill House International Junior School in Knightsbridge and later Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington. The transition proved difficult, and she has spoken about feeling out of place in her new environment.

Before turning to acting, Taylor-Joy trained seriously in ballet, studying the discipline until the age of 15. At 17, while walking her dog outside the Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, she was scouted by Storm Management founder Sarah Doukas. She signed with the agency on the condition that acting remain her first pursuit. During a modelling job promoting Downton Abbey, actor Allen Leech noticed her reciting a Seamus Heaney poem, and he introduced her to his agent, with whom she signed as an actress.

Path to Acting

Taylor-Joy began pursuing acting at the age of 16, balancing school productions with her growing interest in performance. Her professional screen debut arrived in 2014, when she appeared in the fantasy comedy-horror Vampire Academy, though her scenes were ultimately cut from the final release. She then transitioned into British television, first with a guest role in the detective drama Endeavour, followed by a multi-episode arc in the fantasy-adventure series Atlantis.

Her breakout arrived in 2015, when she starred as Thomasin in The Witch, a period horror film directed by Robert Eggers about a Puritan family confronting supernatural forces in 1630s New England. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim, and her performance was widely praised. She capped the year by winning the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor and the Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer.

Anya Taylor-Joy Career

Early Career (2013–2019)

Following the success of The Witch, Taylor-Joy took on a series of distinctive genre roles. In 2016, she played the title character in Luke Scott’s science fiction horror film Morgan and portrayed a young Barack Obama acquaintance in the drama Barry, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. She then joined M. Night Shyamalan’s Split opposite James McAvoy, playing Casey Cooke, a teenager abducted by a man with dissociative identity disorder. The film was a major commercial success, grossing 278.5 million dollars against a 9 million dollar budget.

In 2017, she appeared in the black comedy Thoroughbreds with Olivia Cooke and Anton Yelchin, as well as the horror mystery Marrowbone. Her rising profile led to a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination and the Trophée Chopard at the Cannes Film Festival. She reprised her role as Casey Cooke in the 2019 superhero film Glass, appeared as Gina Gray in the BBC series Peaky Blinders, and voiced Brea in the fantasy series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

Breakthrough (2020–present)

Taylor-Joy’s mainstream breakthrough came in 2020, when she played Emma Woodhouse in Autumn de Wilde’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination. That same year, she starred as Beth Harmon in the Netflix limited series The Queen’s Gambit, a role that brought her the widest recognition of her career. The series was seen by 62 million households in its first 28 days, becoming Netflix’s biggest scripted limited series to date. She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie, and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress.

She continued her ascent with Edgar Wright’s psychological horror Last Night in Soho (2021), the historical epic The Northman (2022), and the black comedy The Menu (2022), the latter of which earned her another Golden Globe nomination. In 2023, she voiced Princess Peach in the animated blockbuster The Super Mario Bros. Movie. In 2024, she made a surprise cameo in Dune: Part Two and then took on the title role in George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road.

Notable Works and Milestones

Her signature works include The Witch, Split, Emma, The Queen’s Gambit, and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Among her awards are a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor, the Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer, and the Trophée Chopard. She has been recognized on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, Time’s 100 Next list, and as Associated Press Breakthrough Entertainer of the Year.

Anya Taylor-Joy Award Nominations

Anya Taylor-Joy has earned multiple major award nominations across film and television. Her nominations include the BAFTA Rising Star Award, the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for The Queen’s Gambit, and Golden Globe Award nominations for her performances in Emma and The Menu.

Anya Taylor-Joy Awards Won

Anya Taylor-Joy has won several prestigious awards over the course of her career. Her major wins include the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie, both for The Queen’s Gambit in 2021. Earlier in her career, she received the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor and the Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer for The Witch, along with the Trophée Chopard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2017.

Anya Taylor-Joy Family

Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy is the daughter of Dennis Alan Taylor, a former banker and offshore powerboat racer who won two UIM world offshore championships in the 1980s, and Jennifer Marina Joy, a psychologist. Her father is an Argentine of English and Scottish descent, while her mother was born in Zambia to an English diplomat father and a Spanish mother from Barcelona. Taylor-Joy is the youngest of six siblings, with four older half-siblings from her father’s previous marriage.

Personal Life

Taylor-Joy and musician Malcolm McRae began dating in 2021 and married in a private ceremony on April 1, 2022, in New Orleans. The couple held a second ceremony in September 2023 at the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, Italy. Beyond her personal life, she has been recognized on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in 2019, Time’s 100 Next list in 2021, and has served as an ambassador for brands including Tiffany & Co., Dior, Viktor & Rolf, and Jaeger-LeCoultre.