Anya Taylor-Joy names the directors she’s desperate to work with
No matter how prolific, every actor will always have a bucket list of directors to work with, even if it seems they’ve worked with everyone – there’s always one just out of their grasp. Only a decade into her career and that list is already narrowing for Anya Taylor-Joy.
After a few small television roles, Taylor-Joy was cast in Robert Eggers’ folk horror debut, The Witch, which started her on track for an incredibly prolific decade. While Eggers’ was at the beginning of his career at the time, he quickly gained traction after the success of The Witch and his second film The Lighthouse, starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson.
This means Taylor-Joy’s breakthrough role ended up being with one of the most successful breakout auteurs of her time. The following year, she starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split alongside James McAvoy. So that’s one future auteur and one household name checked off her list in the first two years of her career. She had even starred in the panned debut film of Ridley Scott’s son before these.
From there, she went on to global acclaim after her starring role in The Queen’s Gambit, which captivated lockdown audiences. And what has followed is a string of successes, with even more big names added to the pile. There was Edgar Wright with Last Night in Soho, Robert Eggers again with The Northman, Mark Mylod with The Menu and most recently, George Miller with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It’s an impressive array of talented filmmakers.
But speaking to Harper’s Bazaar as one of their ‘Women of the Year’, the actor made it clear that she isn’t done bagging big names. On her bucket list is “Quentin Taratino, Wes Anderson, James Mangold, Damien Chazelle, Greta Gerwig”. And, while Taylor-Joy is one of the biggest stars of the moment, it’s still an aspirational list of names to covet.
Especially considering Tarantino is about to be one movie ten of his self-imposed ten-movie cap. Although, she may well have a chance to slip in before the pulp master bids Hollywood adieu, considering he has just scrapped the project that was meant to be his last. However, his preference for American actors might also cause a problem. Then again, Taylor-Joy holds American citizenship due to the fluke of being born in Miami, so there’s still hope.
The rest of the list seems much more plausible, especially the likes of Gerwig and Chazelle. You would be forgiven for having a Mandela Effect moment and swearing you’d already seen her rush of blonde hair in either of their oeuvres. Perhaps it’s just her proximity to the other blonde star Margot Robbie, who has famously appeared in both Chazelle and Gerwig’s films, that has such an effect.
With her success at starring in stylised period dramas like Emma and The Queen’s Gambit, it could be interesting to see her work with Anderson on one of his pastel-coloured daydreams. Regardless, this is all entirely conjecture as she isn’t currently rumoured to be working with any of those on her list.
After Miller’s latest Mad Max entry, she’s due to star in Scott Derrickson’s survival action film The Gorge and Roman Gavras’ action adventure Sacrifice. What I presume we all really want is to see her return to Eggers’ universe, but after being recast in Nosferatu due to scheduling conflicts, who knows when or if that will be.
