• Faith: Christian - Catholic
• Career: Actress
• Birthday:  April 16, 1996

Born Anya Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy, she quickly became a fixture in Hollywood because of her dynamic acting and the broad spectrum of roles she could play. She also had a wide-ranging upbringing. The youngest of six children, Taylor-Joy was born in Miami but raised between Buenos Aires, Argentina, and London, England.

She first made waves in film with her role as Thomasin in Robert Eggers' debut mainstream film, "The Witch," in 2015. The film was set in New England during the early settlements of 1630 and focuses on a Puritan family banished from their village for their religious beliefs. Eventually, they are plagued by an evil presence in the forest near their farm. The emphasis on a Puritan family torn between faith and fear is what drew her to the role.

Anya Taylor-Joy's role selections focused on the internal struggle of faith propelling us to great things and the external dream of fame in any area. In 2016, she played Charlotte Baughman, a fictional character based on a few girlfriends who would inspire a young Barack Obama to consider politics in "Barry." In the "Eastrail 177" trilogy from M. Night Shyamalan, she plays Casey Cooke, the heroine of the film, fighting and jailing her uncle, a predator, from years of brutal physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. She later helps two other captives survive abduction at the hands of a troubled man with dissociative identity disorder (DID), Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy).

Yet, it wasn't until her captivating Emmy and Golden Globe-winning role as Beth Harmon in Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit" that she became a household name in 2020. Anya Taylor-Joy plays a gifted woman with a severe form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Her hyper-fixation on chess helped rescue Harmon from an internal prison of sensory sensitivity, OCD behaviors, and emotional dysregulation.

Two years later, she reconnected with Robert Eggers in "The Northman," portraying Olga of the Birch Forest, who leaned on her beliefs in Norse mythology to reach her final destination with the mythical Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård). She was also cast as the diabolical Gina Gray in Netflix's remarkable hit series "Peaky Blinders."

While faith was not involved with later projects, such as "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (Princess Peach) and "Amsterdam" (Libby Voze), a considerable amount of belief takes heart in her next few roles including Furiosa in the self-titled "Mad Max Saga," Alia Atreides, who is the sister of the known Messiah of the universe in "Dune: Part Two" (and later in Part Three, entitled "Dune: Messiah"), and her most recent project on AppleTV+, "The Gorge." There, Taylor-Joy plays Drasa, a federal operative who protects humanity against the forces at the literal gates of hell.

Anya Taylor-Joy's Religious Beliefs

Anya Taylor-Joy's father is Scottish but was born in South America, and her mother is Spanish-English but was born in Zambia, which is in south-central Africa. Living between the two continents, she didn't speak English until she was eight. However, it's from both her backgrounds–rich in the Catholic and Anglican faiths—that she gets her personal understanding of God.

While she is not outspoken about her faith, she does identify with Catholicism, which has the same values as her parents, who were already in their 50s when she was born. Because she is reserved about her belief in God, this reflects similar actions among practicing Catholics and Anglicans.

She has frequently relied on her diverse religious upbringing to help her delve into a role. In an Oct. 2020 article about "The Queen's Gambit," Taylor-Joy said she relied on that faith and childhood experience of self-misunderstanding to portray Harmon so beautifully.

"I was very lonely as a child. I just had this deep faith and desire that there was a world one day where I was going to be able to inhabit it. I was going to have something to contribute, and the people around me would like me for the way that I was. I think Beth finds that in chess, and I was lucky enough to find it in art."