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Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy says she’s ‘NOT beautiful enough to be in films’

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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Anya Taylor-Joy, star of The Queen’s Gambit, has stated that she does not believe she is “beautiful enough” to appear in films.

Despite landing the main part in Jane Austen’s Emma and being cast as a younger version of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa in the next Mad Max prequel, the 24-year-old actress believes she doesn’t fit Hollywood’s beauty standards.

‘I have never and I don’t think I will ever think of myself as beautiful,’ the gorgeous actress, 24, is quoted as saying in The Sun. ‘I don’t think I’m beautiful enough to be in films,’ It sounds pathetic and my boyfriend warns me people will think I’m an absolute d*** for saying these things, but I just think I’m weird-looking.’

She was discovered by a modelling scout. When she was 16, she was signed to Storm Management modeling firm. She also said that during filming Emma, she “genuinely had a panic attack”

“I thought, ‘I am the first ugly Emma and I can’t do this’, because the first line in the movie is, “I’m handsome, clever and rich’,” she explained.

Anya recently stated that she would ‘certainly’ film a second season of the blockbuster Netflix drama The Queen’s Gambit, which is based on an American author Walter Tevis’ book. In the first season, she portrayed Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy and orphan from Kentucky whose brilliance is undeniable.

‘If I’ve learned anything from being in this industry, it’s never say never,’ Anya told Town & Country.

‘I adore the character, and I would certainly come back if I was asked to, but I do think we leave Beth in a good place. ‘I think the rest of her life will surely be an adventure as well, but in the quest that she goes on in this to find some form of peace, just some form of being able to be happy with who she is. I think it ends in a nice place.’

Since she was six years old, Anya has aspired to be an actor.

She told her mother, an African-Spanish psychologist, and father, a Scottish-Argentine powerboat racer, that she wanted to be an actress while she was in primary school.

Edgar Wright’s thriller Last Night in Soho, in which she portrays a young lady enthusiastic about fashion design who inexplicably enters the 1960s and meets her idol, and a cinematic version of Francesca Lia Block’s novel Weetzie Bat are among her next projects.

She’ll also appear in Kristin Scott Thomas’ love drama The Sea Change and Robert Eggers’ Viking retribution story The Northman.

Anya also recounted being ridiculed since she didn’t know a word of English when she moved from Buenos Aires to London when she was eight years old.

She recalled: “Argentina is all green and I had horses and animals everywhere. All of a sudden I was in a big city and didn’t speak the language. I didn’t really feel like I fitted in anywhere.

“I was too English to be Argentine, too Argentine to be English, too American to be anything.

“The kids just didn’t understand me in any shape or form. I used to get locked in lockers.

“I spent a lot of time in school crying in bathrooms.

“I was so lonely as a kid. I felt so isolated that I created this story in my head about lonely was bad, being alone was bad. “ That can be quite an impactful feeling, especially if you’ve taught yourself to fear it.”