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Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy (; born 16 April 1996) is an actress. Born in Miami and raised in Buenos Aires and London, she left school at the age of 16, following which she pursued an acting career. After a series of small television roles, her breakthrough came with a leading role in the horror film The Witch (2015). Her career progressed with roles in the horror film Split (2016) and its sequel Glass (2019), the black comedy film Thoroughbreds (2017), and for playing Emma Woodhouse in the period drama Emma (2020).
Taylor-Joy featured in the television crime drama series Peaky Blinders (2019–2022), and earned international recognition for playing Beth Harmon in the period drama miniseries The Queen's Gambit (2020), winning a Golden Globe Award and a SAG Award, in addition to a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award. She then starred in the horror film Last Night in Soho (2021), the action films The Northman (2022) and The Gorge (2025), and the black comedy The Menu (2022). She also voiced Princess Peach in the animated film The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and starred as Imperator Furiosa in the apocalyptic film (2024).
Taylor-Joy lived with her family in Buenos Aires and attended Northlands School until the age of six, when the family moved to the Victoria area of London. She is fluent in Spanish and English. Taylor-Joy experienced the move as "traumatic" and initially refused to learn English in hopes of moving back to Argentina. She attended Hill House International Junior School and Queen's Gate School, acting in school productions. She struggled socially at school, recalling:
Taylor-Joy initially trained in dance, studying ballet until the age of 15. At age 17, she was scouted as a model by Storm Management founder Sarah Doukas, while walking her dog outside Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, London. She signed with the agency on the condition that acting remain her first passion and pursuit. During a modelling shoot promoting the television series Downton Abbey, which she had almost rejected because she was studying for her GCSE examinations, Taylor-Joy was noticed by the Downton Abbey actor Allen Leech while running errands for the crew and while reciting the Seamus Heaney poem "Digging" for a forthcoming screentest. He later introduced her to his agent, with whom she signed as an actress.
The following year, Taylor-Joy starred in Luke Scott's science fiction horror film Morgan, playing the title character. It received negative reviews and was a commercial failure, but Booth Newspaperss John Serba wrote that "Taylor-Joy disarms us with a performance that keenly teeter-totters between little-girl innocent and dead-eyed viciousness." She next starred in the drama film Barry, which focused on a young Barack Obama during his first year at Columbia University in 1981; it premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. The same year, Taylor-Joy's likeness was licensed from Storm Management to represent the character of Valkyrie Cain on the tenth anniversary book cover of Skulduggery Pleasant, and subsequently the covers of the , , , and in the series, with Derek Landy and Eoin Colfer — Easons' Department 51 at Liberty Hall, Dublin 19 October 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2021. before she appeared in the music video for Skrillex's remix of GTA's song "Red Lips".
In 2016, she was cast opposite James McAvoy in M. Night Shyamalan's Split, where she played Casey Cooke, a teenage girl abducted by a man with multiple personalities (McAvoy). It was a commercial success, grossing $278.5 million on a budget of $9 million. Her next film that year was Cory Finley's directorial debut Thoroughbreds. It co-starred Olivia Cooke and Anton Yelchin in his final film role. Taylor-Joy played Lily, a high-school student who schemes to kill her stepfather via a contract with a drug dealer. It premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival; David Ehrlich of IndieWire called her performance "captivating". Her third release in 2017 was Sergio G. Sánchez's horror mystery Marrowbone; Tasha Robinson of The Verge wrote that Taylor-Joy brought "a shy, appealing warmth" to an inconsistent character. Taylor-Joy was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award, and was awarded the Trophée Chopard at the Cannes Film Festival that year. In December 2017, she portrayed Petronella Oortman in the BBC One period drama miniseries The Miniaturist, based on Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist.
Taylor-Joy reprised her role as Casey Cooke in the 2019 psychological superhero film Glass, the final film in the Unbreakable film trilogy, appearing with McAvoy, Samuel L. Jackson and Sarah Paulson. It was a commercial success, grossing $247 million worldwide, Later that year, she appeared in the documentary film Love, Antosha, on the life and career of her late co-star Anton Yelchin; and in Hozier's music video for his song "Dinner & Diatribes". Her next two 2019 films, the animated musical adventure film and biographical drama film Radioactive, were commercial failures.
She also voiced the character of Brea in the fantasy series . In her final role of 2019, she played the starring role of Gina Gray in the BBC One period crime drama series Peaky Blinders.
Taylor-Joy starred in the Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit as Beth Harmon, an orphaned chess prodigy on her rise to the top of the chess world while struggling with drug and alcohol dependency. The series and her performance received widespread critical acclaim. Netflix announced that it had been seen by 62 million households in its first 28 days of release, becoming its "biggest scripted limited series to date." Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly called Taylor-Joy's performance "darkly fascinating" and noted how she "excels in the quiet moments, with her eyelids narrowing as she decimates an opponent, and her whole body physicalizing angry desperation when the game turns against her." Similarly, Caroline Framke of Variety found her "so magnetic that when she stares down the camera lens, her flinty glare threatens to cut right through it." Taylor-Joy's portrayal won her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie and garnered her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
In 2020, she next appeared in the drama film Here Are the Young Men, directed by Eoin Macken and based on the novel of the same name by Rob Doyle. In 2021, she starred in Edgar Wright's psychological horror film Last Night in Soho. In the film, she performs the song "Downtown" by Petula Clark; a music video of Taylor-Joy's rendition was also released. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal highlighted the "dazzling sense of purpose" in her portrayal. She was included on Time magazine's 100 Next list that same year.
In 2022, Taylor-Joy reunited with The Witch director Robert Eggers for a starring role opposite Alexander Skarsgård in the historical epic The Northman. Based on the old Scandinavian legend of Amleth, the film was described as "a Viking revenge saga set in Iceland at the turn of century". It received a positive critical reception. Taylor-Joy then appeared in David O. Russell's period comedy Amsterdam, which received mixed reviews and failed commercially. Released the following month was Mark Mylod's black comedy thriller The Menu, in which Taylor-Joy starred opposite Nicholas Hoult and Ralph Fiennes. The film garnered largely positive reviews, and her performance gained her a Golden Globe Award nomination. The following year, Taylor-Joy had a voice role as Princess Peach in the animated film The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Taylor-Joy began 2024 with a cameo role as Alia Atreides in Denis Villeneuve's , a casting that was initially kept secret and was not publicly announced until she walked the red carpet at the film's London premiere. She next starred as the titular character in George Miller's action film , which served as a prequel to the 2015 film . Taylor Joy declared the film to have been an unpleasant working endeavor, stating: "I’ve never been more alone than making that movie ... I don’t want to go too deep into it, but everything that I thought was going to be easy was hard." Nevertheless, she earned praise for her performance, being described by The Guardian
In 2025, she starred opposite Miles Teller in Scott Derrickson's romantic action film The Gorge, which released on Apple TV+. She will next star with Chris Evans in the action comedy film Sacrifice.
| +Key | Denotes films that have not yet been released |
| Barry | Charlotte Baughman | |
| Split | Casey Cooke | |
| Thoroughbreds | Lily Reynolds | |
| Love, Antosha | Herself | Documentary |
| Marla Brenner | ||
| Radioactive | Irene Curie | |
| Here Are the Young Men | Jen | |
| The New Mutants | Illyana Rasputin / Magik | |
| The Menu | Margot / Erin | |
| Amsterdam | Libby Voze | |
| Imperator Furiosa | ||
| Joan | Post-production; also executive producer Hollywood Stars Flock to Greece for New Netflix Movie ‘Sacrifice’ |
| Atlantis | Cassandra | Recurring role, 6 episodes | |
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