Do we like Anya Taylor-Joy?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record on harm and no allegations found, but the public record on her causes is thin, so she stops short of the top.
Anya Taylor-Joy spent her first six years in Argentina speaking only Spanish, then landed in London. She has said the start was traumatic because she didn't speak English, and that it left her feeling like an outsider. That outsider streak is a big part of why her characters feel so odd and alive.
The harm check came back empty, and we looked properly. We found no remarks from her against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and no slide into conspiracy theories. The one public theme we found was her push to let women on screen be angry and complicated rather than just sweet. The honest caveat is that she keeps politics out of interviews, so there is little to read either way.
The company she keeps looks fine too. Her recent big jobs are a Tolkien film led by Andy Serkis with Ian McKellen and Elijah Wood, and Lucky, which she executive produces with Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine. We found nothing in that lot that sets off alarm bells.
Lucky shot to the top of Apple TV's US chart a day after it started on 15 July. Taylor-Joy plays a con artist hauled back into her old life, alongside Annette Bening and Timothy Olyphant. On the good stuff, she took home the Golden Globe for The Queen's Gambit in 2021, and that remains the headline win. We found no reliable record of her own donations, so we won't pretend there is one.
No lawsuits, convictions or credible allegations against her turned up. The gossip-site chatter is about her outfits and her private life, and that is tabloid territory we've left alone.