Anya Taylor-Joy is the moment. Not only is she an absolutely exceptional actor but she's quickly become one of award season's most anticipated red carpet stalwarts.
That's why it's pretty damn heartbreaking to hear that the 27-year-old revealed she she stopped looking in mirrors due to online comments making fun of her appearance.
In a resurfaced interview, which is going viral and quite rightly evoking sympathy from her fans, the model-turned-actor told W Magazine that negative comments about her ‘far apart eyes’ made her avoid mirrors.
Anya Taylor-Joy said: “I can definitely remember when Facebook was a thing and I was never aware that my eyes were far apart and then someone tagged me in a picture with a fish and they were like, ‘This is you ’cause your eyes are like here."
“And I was really upset about it and I didn’t enjoy it and I kind of stopped looking in mirrors for a very long time,” she said. "I still don’t really spend a lot of time in front of mirrors because I don’t really have to deal with my face. Unfortunately, y’all do.”
The star, who became a household name thanks to her turn in Netflix's hugely popular The Queen's Gambit, also revealed that her friends would throw a ball at the side of her head because “my eyes really were on both sides of my face”. “It became common knowledge in the playground that if you wanted me to catch a ball, you had to throw it at the side of my head ‘cause if you just threw it straight here, I’d just be like, ‘Oh, my God. What? What happened? What’s going on?’” she recalled.
Thankfully the star revealed that she's gaining more body confidence and is “growing into” herself and felt “a bit less awkward” as a result. “And now it’s like my face has grown a bit more. I’m kind of growing into myself. I’m a bit less awkward. Though I’m still growing a lot. I’m still getting taller – I grew like two inches last year. I don’t really know what to do with all of my limbs.”
Anya, we think you're perfect just as you are.
The tweet with the old interview amassed 56,000 likes and 14.8m views as fans rushed to show their support for Anya.
By no means a new face, Anya professional acting career began back in 2014 as she made her television debut as Philippa Collins-Davidson in an episode of the detective drama series Endeavour.
t wasn't until a year later, however, that her first real breakthrough came courtesy of period horror film The Witch, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and saw Anya win the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor and the Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer.
Despite this success, it's only been over the last two years that Anya's become a globally-recognised name in mainstream circles. Whilst in 2020 she played the title role in Emma - a film adaptation of Jane Austen's 1815 novel - this recognition is largely thanks her lead role as Beth Harmon in the wildly-popular Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit which garnered her a Golden Globe, a Critics' Choice Award, a SAG Award and an Emmy nomination.
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