Anya Taylor-Joy says she’s an advocate of “fighting for feminine rage” on screen
Furiosa actor Anya Taylor-Joy has recently spoken of her advocacy for “fighting for feminine rage” during her performances. Taylor-Joy has previously been asked for her characters to cry on screen but stood up against her directors, feeling that such an emotion wasn’t right for the role.
The British actor firmly believes that women “have reactions that are not always dainty or un-messy,” which is why she has been adamant about showing darker and more aggressive sides to her characters, even when they haven’t always been written that way.
In an interview with GQ, she spoke of her notoriety in Hollywood for believing in feminine anger, which she believes deserves to be shown authentically on screen. “I’ve developed a bit of a reputation for fighting for feminine rage, which is a strange thing because I’m not promoting violence,” Taylor-Joy said, “but I am promoting women being seen as people.”
In Robert Eggers’ The Witch, it was written in the script that her character would cry while being dragged through her family’s home after being accused of being a witch. However, Taylor-Joy could not find the emotion to try in every take.
In turn, Taylor-Joy told Eggers that Thomasin actually had something different going on inside her than sadness. She noted, “Eventually I said, ‘She’s angry; she’s fucking pissed. She’s been blamed time and time again, and she’s not doing anything. We have to stop with the crying.’”
In addition, Taylor-Joy challenged Mark Mylod when she was working on The Menu, who had wanted her character to cry a single tear when she found out that she had been brought to a private dinner in order to be killed. Taylor-Joy responded by saying, “What planet are we living on?” before explaining that her character would rather want to “leap across the table and try and literally kill him with my bare hands.”
When Taylor-Joy worked with Eggers again on The Northman, the director also took her account into consideration, leading to a scene in which her character slaps a man with her menstrual blood to stop him from touching her against her will, which Eggers called a “very strong, defiant and memorable choice.”
Still, even despite her championing “female rage”, Taylor-Joy feels that she isn’t personally an angry person, noting, “For a long time the only time I ever got angry was on other people’s behalves. I’ve always internalized this thing of ‘I’ve done something wrong. If you treat me badly, it’s because I am the problem.’”
