Anya Taylor-Joy explains why she chose ‘The Witch’ over Disney role
Anya Taylor-Joy has shared why she went for the main role in the supernatural horror The Witch over Disney.
When speaking to Harper Bazaar, the actor revealed that she was offered a role on the Disney Channel the very same day she got her role in Robert Egger’s horror. Taylor-Joy shared: “I remember it was the same day I got asked to be in a Disney Channel pilot, and it was so exciting to be offered anything at all that I ran around the house like a loon.”
When explaining what led her to choose the latter, the Queen’s Gambit star said: “I just had this really good feeling about The Witch that made me willing to forego the Disney experience for the thing that felt unknown to me, the thing that felt sacred.”
Taylor-Joy then added what the fantasy horror role did for her career: “It gave me the cornerstones of the way I work now, which is essentially the idea that there is no hierarchy on set: you work hard, you stay on top of the shots and you don’t assume anyone else is going to do that for you.”
She added: “Your title doesn’t stop at actor – you’re a creative on this film, and that’s how you need to approach it.”
In 2021, during an interview with Variety’s Actors on Actors, she shared how wrapping up the film was a painful milestone for her. “My first heartbreak was not a relationship,” the actor revealed, “My first heartbreak was finishing my first job [on The Witch] and experiencing that loss.”
Taylor-Joy felt that “the loss of there was a world that existed with a group of people that became my everything for a period of time, and now it’s over. I had no concept as to how to deal with that.”
The young star then worked with director Eggers again for the action-adventure The Northman, where she starred alongside Alexander Skarsgard and Willem Defoe. The duo will work again for a third time on the upcoming horror remake Nosferatu.
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