"I shouldn’t be the anomaly here, I should be the norm"- When Anya Taylor-Joy revealed she turned down all "girlfriend roles"

Though quite young even now, Anya Taylor-Joy has never been a typical actor, more often than not, taking up roles that are considered dark and messy. From a very young age, the actress was always clear about certain things, including her film preferences, and now she has established herself as an actor who you would not spot in your typical rom-com flicks.

The actress spoke about this back in March 2018, when she revealed how she turned down "girlfriend" roles multiple times, sticking to her niche and creating a benchmark for female-led stories. Speaking to The Guardian in an interview, Taylor-Joy said:

"I’ve been very lucky, actually, in terms of the team that I have around me, who have filtered out most of those roles. Most of the women not only that I’ve been lucky enough to play but that I’ve read are quite complex, messy, interesting human beings – but then again I shouldn’t be the anomaly here, I should be the norm. Definitely, whenever I’ve got a girlfriend role, I’ve sent it back being like ‘Eh? Why?’"

She further added:

"I’m excited for this era of women that we are stepping into right now where people understand that everyone’s a person and they’ve all got a lot more going on underneath the surface than you might originally think."

In this interview, Anya Taylor-Joy also spoke about her movie preferences and how she would usually pick out the movies she would want to act in.

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"I think there’s such a humanity in darkness and pain"- Anya Taylor-Joy on her usual dark roles

Though this particular interview dates back over six years, Anya Taylor-Joy has largely remained fixated on her genre and her type of character. She had her breakthrough with The Witch and since then has followed up with many such interesting but dark roles.

Speaking to The Guardian about the kind of movies she does and likes to do, Taylor-Joy said:

"Movies-wise, I’d love to be able to say that I’ve thought about it and I had a whole trajectory planned, but I didn’t. I was just connected to my characters and they happened to inhabit very dark worlds."

She further elaborated:

"Fiction-wise, though, and in my own self, I love fairytales, the Hans Christian Andersen ones. I think there’s such a humanity in darkness and pain. In terms of working in movies, it’s really fun to play out dark stuff because you get to feel out the extent of your emotions and your brackets of what’s acceptable are so much wider in those types of films so it’s fun to play."

As Anya Taylor-Joy is only 28, she still has plenty of time to navigate her career but it seems that she has picked a path and will continue to follow this in the future. Since this interview, the actress has taken up a variety of interesting roles, like Last Night in Soho, The Menu, The Northman, and more recently in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Taylor-Joy is also set to appear in numerous exciting projects in the coming years, including The Gorge in 2025. She will appear in Sacrifice, which is yet to get a release date.