Anya Taylor-Joy

About

Anya Taylor-Joy is a fresh-curd cheese with a sharp little rind: bright and youthful on first taste, but there is far more going on underneath than the surface suggests. She has been carrying films since her early twenties, and each role seems to ripen her a little more. Watch her in The Witch, where Thomasin is a girl whose faith and fear slowly curdle into something unnerving, and Taylor-Joy lets every flicker of doubt crack through her stillness. Split gave her a far more unsettling plate to work on, and she keeps Casey guarded and watchful, never tipping into melodrama. In The Queen's Gambit, Beth Harmon is cool and controlled on the outside, with the tension aged slowly in every silence across the chessboard. The Northman and Furiosa show her taking a harder, more physical edge, the bite of the cheese now sharpened for the big action set piece without losing its precision. Her Princess Peach is light and bright, a reminder that the same palate can turn playful as easily as it turns severe. Taylor-Joy is still maturing, and the flavour only gets richer with every new wheel she is cut from.