Anya Taylor-Joy Rejected Disney Offer So She Could Star in ‘The Witch’ Instead: I Had a ‘Really Good Feeling’ About It

Zack Sharf
·2 min read
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Anya Taylor-Joy revealed in a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar magazine that she rejected an offer to star in a Disney Channel pilot in order to act in Robert Eggers’ “The Witch” instead. The 2015 horror movie served as Taylor-Joy’s acting breakthrough. Suffice to say, the Emmy nominee’s career would’ve looked a whole lot different if she went the Disney route. Taylor-Joy got offers from Disney and “The Witch” on the exact same day.

“I remember it was the same day I got asked to be in a Disney Channel pilot, and it was so exciting to be offered anything at all that I ran around the house like a loon,” Taylor-Joy said. “But I just had this really good feeling about ‘The Witch’ that made me willing to forego the Disney experience for the thing that felt unknown to me, the thing that felt sacred.”

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Taylor-Joy knows she made the right decision, and she credited “The Witch” for giving her “the cornerstones of the way I work now,” adding, “It’s essentially the idea that there is no hierarchy on set: you work hard, you stay on top of the shots and you don’t assume anyone else is going to do that for you. Your title doesn’t stop at actor—you’re a creative on this film, and that’s how you need to approach it.”

Several years and many roles later, Taylor-Joy still holds her experience filming “The Witch” in high regard. During an interview for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” in 2021, Taylor-Joy cited “The Witch” as her first “heartbreak.”

“My first heartbreak was not a relationship. My first heartbreak was finishing my first job [on “The Witch”], and experiencing that loss,” Taylor-Joy said. “The loss of there was a world that existed with a group of people that became my everything for a period of time, and now it’s over. I had no concept as to how to deal with that.”

Taylor-Joy recently wrapped production on George Miller’s “Furiosa,” a prequel to “Mad Max: Fury Road” that Warner Bros. is set to release in theaters on May 24, 2024. The actor will next grace the big screen in “The Menu,” opening Nov. 17 from Searchlight Pictures.

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