FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA Star Anya Taylor-Joy Covers ELLE’s June/July 2024 Issue

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Anya Taylor-Joy covers ELLE’s June/July 2024 issue. After an intense and isolating FURIOSA shoot, the star is reveling in married life with Malcolm McRae. ELLE spoke with Taylor-Joy about challenges she overcame to film FURIOSA, her surprise appearance in DUNE 2 and what it means for her involvement in the franchise moving forward. She also opened up about her elopement and reflected on her career, sharing what she hoped for when she went to Sundance with her first film 10 years ago: “I hoped for magic.”

Anya Taylor-Joy also participated in ELLE’s new video series ‘Starstruck’ where ELLE’s resident astrologists, The AstroTwins, quiz Anya on how much she knows about herself based on her astrological sign. Anya talks about her aspirations to direct films in the future, about her relationship with her husband, with whom she shares the same birthday, and shares how when they argue they “always end up laughing” and her high school experience and being “different” as a teen.

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On her shock appearance in Dune: Part Two, a minute-long fever dream that made international news and reportedly set up a major role in the next film: News of her cameo—unknown perhaps even to her costar Zendaya—broke just before the London premiere earlier this year. “I think Z had suspicions whilst filming,” Taylor-Joy says, adding, “I really wanted them to know. I didn’t just want to show up and be like, ‘Hi.’”

On the question of what the Dune: Part Two premiere spells for the future: “I try not to get too caught up in the rest of it. I just want to be able to do the thing that I love. And I hope that the purity of that love shines through.”

On her first time playing the leading role on the global franchise Furiosa: “I had no idea what it was to put myself first in any way or how I wanted to exist.”

On how when she read the Furiosa script for the first time, she felt she knew this woman immediately: “The most beautiful and heartbreaking thing about Furiosa is that she’s the embodiment of impossible hope—living in a world where everything is a violation to you. The air that you breathe, the lack of food, the fact that empathy is punished, that trust is punished. And throughout it all, she just has this relentless conviction that she’s going to make good on that promise she made. I still get chills thinking about it.”

On how Furiosa was a challenge, mentally and physically and how she had to XYZ: Taylor-Joy had not driven a motorcycle since an accident at age 19 in Argentina. “My best friend’s older brother had just bought a Ducati,” she says. “I went off on the bike in shorts and heeled espadrilles. I did pretty well until I had to stop. Then I went into a tree.” She shows off a scar on her left knee. “I got really, really lucky,” she says. “I lost quite a bit of muscle.”

On her experience filming Furiosa: Taylor-Joy says, more than anything she “wanted to be pushed. I wanted to really understand grit in a different way. Because I knew that I had it. But I understood that in isolation, I was going to really experience it. Okay, you’re in a house in the middle of nowhere with just your thoughts and this character. How do you cope with that? And when you don’t have comfort around you—when there’s nothing that you can turn to for distraction—how are you going to experience that?” She adds, “My favorite flowers have always been seeded dandelions or the daisies that grow through concrete. I think I wanted to be placed in concrete. I wanted to understand how that would feel. When you get too comfortable, you stop growing.”

On how she’s grateful to have had so many opportunities come her way, and couldn’t imagine saying no to any of them, but there’s a cost: “I woke up and realized I had not taken a break in 10 years. I’ve always been somebody who wants to take care of other people before taking care of myself. I have always been sick, and working, or exhausted at dinner. I was like, I need to figure out what I do for fun.”

On eloping with Malcolm McRae just before she returned to Australia to shoot Furiosa: “We’re just real romantics,” she says of the secret ceremony. “We were born on the same day. And we wanted to make sure that our first experience was something that was completely for us. So we eloped in New Orleans with our two best friends and had the time of our lives. It was magical. But I’m lucky to say that the second experience—with all of our families—was so beyond beautiful, and I just feel very, very lucky.” The couple is now nesting in their home together in Los Angeles.

On how she’s gotten into The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City: Reality TV used to depress her, but a friend insisted they watch that infamous finale—“Receipts, proof, timeline, screenshots!”—and now Taylor-Joy is hooked: “I don’t know what happened in my brain, but I’m so invested. I’ve never seen so many people yell at the same time.”

On her life right now, and of marriage more than two years in: “I’m an incredibly sensitive, hyper-feeling person. I did not realize that I could have more feelings, but I can. I feel so unbelievably lucky to be completely and utterly in love. I have found my person. I cannot believe that we get to do life together. And in talking about experiences where you get to grow, what an unbelievable thing to live your life with a mirror—and a mirror that causes you to become a better version of yourself.”

[Photo Credit: Dan Martensen for ELLE Magazine]

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