With Rapunzel tresses cascading past her waist, a sparkly Lanvin gown, crystal-studded gloves and those huge Elsa-from-Frozen eyes, Anya Taylor-Joy looks every inch the real-life Disney princess.
Yet, despite voicing Princess Peach in The Super Mario Bros Movie, a new animated spin-off of the video game that’s sure to be one of 2023’s biggest blockbusters, she tells Metro she’s never been a princessy kinda girl.
‘I didn’t want to be the princess, I didn’t want to be the knight – I wanted to be the dragon!’ the 26-year-old says, laughing. Specifically, according to her Instagram bio, she self-identifies as a ‘Dragicorn Space Oddity’. Erm, what is a ‘Dragicorn’?
‘The first part is a joke between my mum and me when I was little I always wanted to be a dragon and unicorn together, so she drew a ‘dragicorn’ for me. It’s a really cool-looking creature – quite frightening, but in a really beautiful way. And then I’ve always connected to feeling a bit out of this world. My head is constantly not even in the clouds but just out in the cosmos somewhere.’
The Queen’s Gambit star certainly looks right at home perched on a magical toadstool against a Zoom backdrop of rainbows. Fantasy, she confesses, has always been her happy place. Her charmed life reads like a modern fairy tale. The youngest of six, she was born in Miami, raised in Argentina, privately educated in London, and spotted by Storm Management models founder Sarah Doukas at 17 while walking her dog outside Harrods.
By 19, she’d landed a star-making breakthrough in The Witch (2015), the critically adored horror that launched her glittering screen career.
But you don’t get this far, that young, without determination. And when Anya lists the qualities she admires in Princess Peach, she could be listing her own.
‘She’s got it so together! She’s incredibly kind and generous and loyal but very firm, very protective, and so tough. Really, really tough. She has her sights set on what she wants and won’t stop until she gets it.’
So, what does she want? With artistic tastes as distinctive as her looks, Anya has so far favoured challenging and unusual indie projects such as The Menu, The Northman, Last Night In Soho, Emma and, of course, Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, which won her a Golden Globe and Screen Actors’ Guild award for best actress. Compared with those, you can’t help thinking The Super Mario Bros Movie was hardly her toughest day in the office.
‘Ha ha!’ she replies, good-naturedly. ‘You know, there’s such an art to voice acting. It’s definitely a unique set of skills.’ And what made her ‘most excited’ about this project was giving a voice to Princess Peach. ‘I think mostly what she says in the game is, “Save me, Mario!” And no disrespect to the games whatsoever, but I think in2023 we can give her a few more words than that.’
Previously a non-gamer – as a child she was more into ‘tag and charades’ – Anya became addicted to Mario Kart while making The Super Mario Bros Movie.
‘I feel like I kind of got a second childhood out of making this movie, because I was spending so much time in arcades with my friends,’ she says. ‘I basically got to become a gamer, as research. My job is incredibly hard!’
And mainlining Mario Kart has doubtless provided light relief while shooting Furiosa, the prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road with Anya as the younger version of Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa – about which she can say nothing.
Furiosa is the kind of major action blockbuster that will propel Anya up to the serious Hollywood A-list. That means more spotlight and red carpets. How does she feel about that dressing-up fuss?
‘When I first started working, I found the red carpet overwhelming’ she admits. ‘I grew up a real tomboy. It wasn’t even that I wasn’t interested in clothes, I just wasn’t very aware of them.
‘But I loved costumes – I loved my mermaid costume. So when I started looking at the red carpet as an art form instead, it made it so much easier and more enjoyable. I now approach red carpets and press days as a way to express myself and tell a story without really having to speak.’
And what does she make of Princess Peach’s get-up? As the only Smurfette in the Super Mario village, so to speak, is it disappointing she’s all in pink?
‘I don’t think pink has to be associated with just being girly’, she says. ‘I think pink can be pretty tough.’
The Super Mario Bros Movie is out now
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