Anya Taylor-Joy interview: I want to play complex superheroes, not placid girlfriends

Rising star: Anya Taylor-Joy talks about demanding more from female roles
Rex Features

Teenagers Lily and Amanda appreciate that they are privileged. They threaten anyone who dares to cross them with letters from their expensive family lawyers and drive gleaming 4x4s. But they are also chronically bored. Lonely days in echoey mansions stretch out in front of them, punctuated by spa breaks where they pretend to enjoy miniscule portions of leafy greens. And so they create drama, planning the murder of Lily’s stepfather.

This is the plot of new film Thoroughbreds, a dark study of female friendship in Connecticut. It’s out next Friday and already winning critical acclaim, taking its place in the psycho teen thriller canon with Heathers.

Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays Lily with remarkable froideur, to Olivia Cooke’s less-polished Amanda, says: “It’s these two strange, bored, sheltered individuals discussing how far you can push morality. The devil makes work for idle hands. It was originally a play; a lot of the dark, delicious dialogue hasn’t changed.”

Preppy Lily has “the straightest posture of anyone I’ve ever met”, says Taylor-Joy, aged 21. “My back would ache filming. I’m terrified of her. She’s the only character I haven’t kept an item of clothing from. I had to sever ties.”

By contrast, Taylor-Joy is charming company, with arresting, wide-set eyes, like a gazelle. She wears a black dress with fluted sleeves — “I’m having a Stevie Nicks moment” — and plays with her tangle of gemstone necklaces as she reminisces about gigs at The Lock Tavern in Camden, where we’ve met.

She is a woman of the world – her father is Scottish-Argentinian and her mother African-Spanish-English and she grew up in Argentina then Knightsbridge – and says: “The way I conduct myself is British with a shot of Argentine warmth — I hug everybody and am effusive.”

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Her break came through modelling. She was spotted by Sarah Doukas of Storm, who discovered Kate Moss, near Harrods when she was 16.

“I always thought I was weird looking,” she says. “I never considered modelling, I’m not good at make-up. But I’d always wanted to be an actress, so I told Sarah I was grateful for the opportunity but wanted to act. She immediately put me with the artists branch of the agency.”

At 17 she was cast in The Witch, which critics described as “a horror masterpiece”. She left school, the private Queen’s Gate, after her AS levels (history, French, Spanish, drama, English and classics, “I loved learning”) to commit to acting and hasn’t had a break in the four years since. That also means she “lives nowhere”, constantly travelling for work and storing her guitar collection at friends’ houses. Her CV to date includes sci-fi film Morgan and the BBC dramatisation of The Miniaturist. She’s also in the X-Men film, The New Mutants, out next year, for which she did as many of her own stunts as she could.

She chooses roles carefully. “Most of my team are strong, badass women, so they filter what I read. Once in a while you get a big film and it’ll be the girlfriend role. Someone will say, ‘this would be good for your career’, and you think: ‘I don’t want to be the girlfriend. I want to be the superhero.’”

Lily is neither girlfriend nor superhero. She is “a chaotic ball, pristine at first but you see her disintegrate into messy rage, nerves and fear”.

Female friendship is at the centre of the film. “Relationships between women at 17, 18 are fascinating. It’s this weird obsession, where you are so close. If it’s sustainable that’s wonderful, but at some point you will be broken apart. It’s your first connection to intimacy. I went to an all-girls school and the break-ups I had with friends were so much worse than anything romantic.”

Toroughbreads: Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke in the new thriller

It aces the Bechdel test — boys are the last thing on these women’s minds.

There is one likeable male character in the film, a surprisingly moral drug dealer played by Anton Yelchin. He died shortly after filming, aged 27, in what police described as a “freak car accident”.

Taylor-Joy says: “Anton had an ability to pick weird characters and imbue them with so much heart because of his talent and empathy. He is unanimously loved and missed.”

When Taylor-Joy heard about Thoroughbreds she was working on Barry, a biopic of Barack Obama’s life. She plays Charlotte, an amalgam of the former president’s three college girlfriends. “A friend said ‘everyone will hate you because you aren’t Michelle Obama’, but what’s cool about Charlotte and Barry is that neither of them is a bad person, they just don’t fit with each other. I hope Michelle doesn’t hate me, I think she’s incredible.”

What does she make of the current US President? “We miss Obama.”

“It’s scary when you are in a turbulent time and things are different to when you grew up, but it’s nice to see people not being despondent but instead saying ‘we want a world that’s more equal’, rather than demonising anybody because of their differences. This might be a hippy dippy thing to say, but we are all just earthlings on a blue speck in space, so if we can all take care of each other and our planet we will be a better place.

“I recently read this placard about gun control saying when the second amendment was instated it was legal to own other people and time has moved on — we need to move on with it. The same goes for women’s rights and human rights. Time literally is up.”

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She’s always been driven. Her mother has a video of her aged six, saying she wants to be an actress. “When I was seven I stopped asking for a puppy and started asking for an agent. Seeing Kirstin Dunst in Jumanji, a small girl like me on screen, acting, made me think I could do it too. My parents worked to give us everything but they couldn’t help me with that. Then I was found on the street.”

Her one extravagance has been a Gucci ring shaped like a lion. “It’s for men and too big. I lost it and had to buy it again.”

Taylor-Joy spent her early childhood in Argentina, moving to Knightsbridge when she was six. Her father worked in investments, then became a power-boat racer. Her mother is a trained psychologist but “had her hands pretty full — I’m the youngest of six.”

They moved to England to escape the political situation. “It was a huge culture shock. No one at school spoke Spanish, my first language. I went from having a house with horses and ducks to just having a hamster, Cherry. I picked her because she had three legs and nobody else wanted her.” Films provided distraction, even if her siblings grew tired of her “constantly performing, they joked that they couldn’t find my off switch”.

London’s grown on her and she eventually wants to settle here but for now work comes first. She’s trying to be vegan — right on cue she breaks off to admire a passing dog. “I’m trying to take better care of myself. Filming Morgan, I was given a nutritionist to make sure I ate properly after I fainted having my chest bound for the role.”

She’s only once been starstruck, when she “had to” say hello to Alicia “Cher from Clueless” Silverstone at a party in LA. When I first started going to events I wanted to give a certain impression but I’ve realised it’s too exhausting to pretend to be polished and nonplussed.”

If only Lily in Thoroughbreds had learnt that. Going back to the film, she adds: “You should know it’s OK to laugh at the film. It has funny moments and is for everybody. Except small children.”

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