American-born Argentine, and British actress Anya Taylor Joy, who is best known for her roles in the period horror movie The Witch and Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit, comes from a big family with fascinating lineage. Her family moved to London from Argentina during her initial childhood days, which made her lonely, and the only thing that could cheer her up was watching movies.

The Youngest of Six Siblings

Born on April 16, 1996, Joy was the youngest child of Dennis Alan Taylor and Jennifer Marina Joy. While her father was of Scottish-Argentinian descent, her mother belonged to Spanish-English ethnicity. Dennis Alan Taylor is a former power boast Racing World Champion, and her mom, Jennifer, is a psychologist who is very passionate about the world.

The actress shares a considerable age gap among her siblings. While her oldest sister is almost thirty years older than her, enjoying her life in her 50s, the closest sibling is seven years older than Joy. 

In an interview with Irish Times, the actress revealed that although she has been raised with many siblings, she felt like a single child because of the age gap. She feels fortunate to have a big family and thinks that she had the best of both worlds, raised as an only child and raised in a big family.

“I’m lucky enough to come from a big family,” she says. “But then, because of the age gap, I was raised kind of like an only child. So I had the best of both worlds.”

The Witch actress also shared a funny incident that happened in her childhood in Argentina. She said she fell off the horse when she was growing up in Argentina while riding it and had a concussion. Her mother’s first reaction was to sing songs to know if her memory was still intact. Her mom said, “Baby, sing the songs.”

Watching Movies Made Her Feel Better

The Taylor family moved to London when the young actress was just six years old. Taylor-Joy was very sad to leave her former home in Argentina and move to a completely new place. In the same interview, she also revealed that she felt very lonely when they got to London.

Initially, the 24-year-old even refused to learn English, hoping that her parents would take her back to Argentina. She studied in an international school in England, but nobody around her spoke Spanish, her first language, so the young Taylor-Joy felt left out and isolated.

“I was very lonely when we got here. I thought if I refused to learn English, my parents would have to take me home to Argentina. I was in an international school, but no one else there spoke Spanish. So I felt very isolated.”

As the youngest in the Taylor family, Joy had a special task during the family movie time, which was to flip over the LaserDiscs. This task and her loneliness turned her into a full-blown movie nut. 

In the same interview, she recalled that her parents instantly realized her love for movies. No matter what was happening in her life, watching movies could improve her mood. 

“My parents quickly realized that no matter what was going on in my life, they could stick me in front of a movie, and I’d be okay again.”

Even though she had a countable number of movie discs, she repeatedly watched all the movies feel good.

“Because we only had a finite number of discs, I watched them all, religiously, again and again, and again.”

Is Taylor-Joy Engaged?

While we’re talking about her family, how can we not mention the love of his life? The Queen’s Gambit star is rumored to be engaged to an Irish model, Eoin Macken, who is thirteen years older than her.

Macken has done modeling for Abercrombie and Fitch. He has also directed the movie, Here Are the Young Men, released in 2020, in which Taylor-Joy played the character of Jen.

There are rumors that the couple might have met on the movie sets; however, the truth about their first meeting is not known. The news about Taylor’s engagement with Macken captured media headlines when the gorgeous actress was spotted with an unusual ring on her finger. The ring had a pale stone with a silver twisted band coupled with another silver chain-designed ring. 

The Emma lead actress was seen again with the same ring when the couple was spotted kissing and drinking wine together publicly.

However, the two never commented on the engagement news, so it couldn’t be officially confirmed.