Anya Taylor-Joy lifts lid on childhood bullying, her dream life away from Hollywood & how she really feels on red carpet
DESPITE winning dream roles, Anya Taylor-Joy admits her real wish is to retreat from Hollywood and live on a farm.
The 29-year-old is one of the world’s best-known actresses but has spent years feeling nervous on the red carpet, struggled to watch her award-winning performances and now wants calm.
She voices love interest Princess Peach in the new Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is released on April 1.
But Anya described her ideal life as “on a farm”.
She said: “I want goats, chickens, ducks, horses — all of it. I want to work, come into the city when I want to, then disappear and ride all day.”
The film is the follow-up to 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which grossed more than £1billion worldwide.
Princess Peach is the main female character and head of state of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Anya said: “I was so touched by how strong she is and how cool. The fact that’s going to be a role model kids can have nowadays is unbelievable. I left feeling very inspired by her.”
Anya knows all too well that life can be difficult as a child.
She was born in Florida, then lived in Argentina for five years where she rode horses in the idyllic countryside.
Her African-Spanish mum, a psychologist, and Scottish-Argentine dad, who raced powerboats, then moved the family to London when she was six — and things became dramatically different.
Anya was bullied, “locked in lockers, barred from classrooms, not invited to things” and did not speak English.
Watching films helped her navigate through the traumas.
She told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “I’ve never been good at being cool, this is why I didn’t get along well with people in school.
“If I like something, I love it and it just pours out of me.
“But if I was sad, like if my hamster died, my parents could put me in front of a movie and I would feel better at the end of it.
“I could get lost in something like that.”
It was her love of movies that eventually helped her learn English.
She says: “I learned English when I was eight. I stuck it out for two years in London, refusing to speak English because I wanted to go home. Then eventually I was like, ‘I have no friends, this is going to be a needed skill’.”
Anya told her parents she was going to be an actress.
But first, after being “picked up” outside Harrods, she became a model at 16.
She was recruited by Sarah Doukas, boss of Storm model agency, who had discovered Kate Moss.
But at first Anya thought she was a stalker.
She said: “It was absurd. A black car comes up, starts chasing me. I pick up my dog, start running and a head comes out of the window and they say, ‘If you stop, you won’t regret it,’ and I stop.
“It was the head of a modelling agency. I don’t encourage other people to do this.
“I had no idea what I was doing, but luckily it worked out and my parents came with me the next day to the modelling agency.”
Her parents always supported her. Anya said: “They’d had six kids, so were like, ‘Oh, just do whatever you’re going to do’.
“I’m so grateful for the approach my parents have had because I did some pretty ballsy things in my teenage years and luckily they paid off, but they were always supportive.”
She did many auditions before getting her breakthrough role at 19 in film The Witch.
Anya said: “I thought that audition went so badly. I truly thought I had messed that up massively because I had a huge panic attack before I went into it, and luckily that really worked for the scene.”
It was then that Anya found where she truly belonged.
She said: “Going into work every single day felt like such a joy.
“I could breathe because I’d found a place where I was doing something I loved, with people who didn’t think I was a psychopath. And I could have fun with it. I loved every second of making that movie.”
She found it “mind blowing” that The Witch was a hit and forced herself to watch the performance.
Anya said: “It’s like getting hit by a bus. I personally don’t agree with not watching your films, it’s not all about you. It’s a whole bunch of other people who have done a lot of work and different departments that you have to go and support, because they deserve it and you love them. So I have to watch it.
“But the first time, I always feel I’ve let people down and I’m always like, ‘Oh, I messed it up’.
“Then I process it and the second time I watch it, it’s slightly more palatable and I’m able to lose myself a bit more.
“By the third time I’m just like, ‘OK, whatever’. You just have to get over yourself and applaud the people you care about that worked with you.”
Anya became a household name in 2020 after starring in Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, which led to a Golden Globe for Best Actress.
She went on to roles in horror film Last Night In Soho, black comedy The Menu and the apocalyptic film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Anya said she works “very hard, very gratefully hard” because she feels lucky to do a job she feels passionate about.
But it is not always easy. Despite her modelling background, Anya struggles with the limelight.
She said: “When I first started doing red carpets, I couldn’t handle the notion of being pretty.
“I was like, ‘I don’t do that’. I am a scummy, mud-caked ferret and striving for anything different felt disingenuous and scary.”
She has even been known to dress up “like an East Berlin spy” at times so nobody recognises her.
Now she is trying to make time for some balance in her life.
She said: “I’ve been living on film sets for five years and, occasionally, I think it would be nice to find out what Anya would do with three months if she wasn’t playing another person.
“So I’m trying to be more careful with my time there.
“You spend 18 hours a day thinking, behaving and breathing as another human being. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to figure out what it is that you like.”
And the person she wants to spend it with is her husband, US musician Malcolm McRae, who she married in 2021.
The couple split their time between homes in the Hollywood Hills and London.
She said: “I’ve finally found someone who will happily sit in silence with me, reading. We’re basically 80 years old and seven at the same time, and it works really well.
“When you are together, you are really valuing the time you have. Everyday, mundane activities are so full of joy.
“I love going to the petrol station with him and filling up the car and going to get breakfast.”
But right now, her focus is all on Princess Peach.
Anya told US Today: “She wants to find out where she comes from and is on a quest for adventure and prioritising herself a little bit more.”
Princess Peach sounds very much like the actress playing her.
