Anya Taylor-Joy Says Watching 'School of Rock,' 'Harry Potter' Helped Her Learn English as a Child

Anya Taylor-Joy lived in Argentina as a child and learned English after moving to London at age six

Anya Taylor-Joy has her costar Jack Black to thank — partly — for her bilingual abilities.

While discussing her role as Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros. Movie with Buzzfeed, Taylor-Joy, 26, said that she found herself watching Black's 2003 movie School of Rock at school "every Friday" as a child.

"Yeah, at the school I went to when I first moved to London they would play School of Rock every Friday," she told the outlet, as she mentioned feeling "super starstruck" doing press with her Mario Bros. costar Black, 53, who plays Bowser in the new animated film.

"At that time, I didn't really speak much English, if any, so that and Harry Potter and Jumanji are like how I learned English," she added.

Taylor-Joy's note about how learned the language came as she gushed about Black, 53, as the pair met for the first time during the Mario Bros. Movie press tour.

Related:The Super Mario Bros. Movie Breaks Record for Biggest Global Box Office Launch for an Animated Film

"The sound that came out of me was just this high pitch shriek that I was not expecting," the actress said of her reaction when she learned she would actually meet Black. The actress noted elsewhere in the interview that she utilizes the song "Tribute" by Black's band Tenacious D as a karaoke song.

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"We haven't met each other because we all recorded our parts individually, so I was super starstruck when I saw the schedule for today," she told Buzzfeed. "I very seldom get like that, but I was just running around earlier like, 'oh my God, Tenacious D, this is amazing.' "

Taylor-Joy lived in Argentina for the first six years of her life until her family moved to London. Back in 2016, she said she "refused to learn English for two years when we moved to London hoping to send my family back home."

Related:The Cast of The Super Mario Bros Movie: All About the Voice Actors

"It was tough, but at the same time it has given me a sense of displacement that actually really suits the life that I'm living now," she said at the time. "I don't really feel like I belong anywhere, which makes me belong everywhere. Plus they are both beautiful places that I love being able to call my home."

Despite her background speaking Spanish, Taylor-Joy — who starred in The Northman, The Menu and Amsterdam in 2022 — has only acted in English-language films. She expressed to Buzzfeed last Wednesday that she would like to work with "any Spanish-speaking directors" on potential future projects.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is in theaters now.

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