Anya Taylor-Joy admits she believed she would never work again after starring in The Witch. These days, Taylor-Joy is one of Hollywood's hottest young stars, so it's a bit wild to remember that her first major film role came just five years ago in The Witch. The A24 horror movie was released in 2016 after debuting at various film festivals the year before. Directed by Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse), The Witch centers on a 1630s family living in the New England wilderness who find themselves torn apart by an unsettling dark force. Taylor-Joy earned raves for her role as Thomasin, the possessed daughter.
Since then, Taylor-Joy has gone on to appear in several high-profile projects. Her next major roles after The Witch came in 2019's Glass and the series Peaky Blinders, but last year proved to be her biggest one yet. In addition to starring as the title character in Emma., Taylor-Joy appeared in the long-delayed The New Mutants and cemented herself as a talent to watch with Netflix's The Queen's Gambit. It's that miniseries that has pulled Taylor-Joy into the current awards conversation for her turn as chess prodigy Beth Harmon.
Looking back on her career so far, there's no question that Taylor-Joy was always destined for bigger things. However, the actress herself might not agree. During an interview with THR's Awards Chatter podcast, Taylor-Joy shared her devastated reaction to seeing The Witch for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival. To say she didn't like her performance would be putting it lightly, as she said:
Rob showed us the film maybe two hours before the audience screening, and I was devastated. I thought I’d never work again, I still get shivers thinking about it. It was just the worst feeling of, “I have let down the people I love most in the world. I didn’t do it right.” And I’m quite verbose, I like to talk, I like to communicate. I did not talk, I just cried. I couldn’t handle seeing my face that large.
It's perhaps safe to say Taylor-Joy has since overcome that initial crisis of confidence. Seeing oneself on the big screen for the very first time must be an odd experience, and for an actor, it has to be hard resisting the urge to criticize the performance. Luckily, Taylor-Joy must have managed to find some positivity in The Witch, since she has since partnered up again with Eggers for The Northman.
That's just one of the many eagerly-anticipated projects Taylor-Joy has coming up, as she will also appear in Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho this fall. Then, she'll lead the Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa, a role she recently said she's excited for. Needless to say, she has worked again. Taylor-Joy's experience with The Witch can almost serve as an inspiration for others; though she initially felt despair over her performance, she persevered and moved onto even bigger heights. In other words, maybe don't let one apparent disappointment ruin everything else that comes after.
Source: THR