Anya Taylor-Joy recently shared some candid revelations about her struggles with self-consciousness regarding her eyes.
The acclaimed actor, widely recognized for her standout role in Netflix’s smash series “The Queen’s Gambit,” has been a fixture in the spotlight for quite some time.
Breaking into Hollywood in her late teens, Taylor-Joy quickly made a name for herself with early roles in projects like “Endeavour” and “The Witch.”
By 2016, she was casting a spell over audiences in “Split,” a film that is often cited as her major breakthrough.
It was during the same year while promoting “Split” that Taylor-Joy spoke to W-Magazine about her meteoric rise in the entertainment industry.
In that interview, after the reporter complimented her unique eyes by calling them “beautiful” and notably “so far apart,” they posed a rather personal question: “When you were a kid, did they make you self-conscious?”
This question prompted Taylor-Joy to open up about the hurtful comments she’s faced about her looks over the years.
She shared a particularly poignant memory: “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.”
Despite her early aversion to mirrors, Taylor-Joy humorously noted that while she avoids them, others might not have that luxury when it comes to her face.
“Unfortunately, y’all do,” she quipped.
Reflecting further on her childhood, Taylor-Joy shared how the unique placement of her eyes even affected her sports abilities.
“I will say though that it’s interesting in sports because I became very aware that when I was smaller, my head was a lot more compact and so 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?'”
With time, Taylor-Joy noted that her face has ‘grown a bit more’.
“I’m kind of growing into myself. I’m a bit less awkward,” she reflected. “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.”
Despite early challenges, Taylor-Joy has undeniably mastered the art of using her unique features to captivate audiences and forge a successful path in Hollywood.