Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke: ‘We’re trying to avoid being pigeonholed in Hollywood’
British rising stars Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke have told of their fight to avoid being pigeonholed in Hollywood.
The actresses, who co-star in forthcoming indie film Thoroughbreds, said they are trying to pick interesting, diverse projects so that they’re not “put in a box”.
“It’s difficult to avoid the box, because even if you’re doing alternative, kooky things you’re still in the alternative quirky box,” Taylor-Joy told the Standard during the London Film Festival.
“So it’s definitely about staying true to yourself and picking the things that you want to pick that really draw you, rather than coming from a place of fear.”
Her co-star, Cooke, said: “I just think that’s everyone in the movie business, that’s their MO, they just plonk you into one box. You do one horror movie and you’re the scream queen and you’re like ‘No I’m not.’
“I think TV definitely has a bigger budget right now unless you’re doing a big Marvel film, but I think there are still really interesting indie movies that are being made.”
Taylor-Joy, 21, rose to fame after being cast in Robert Eggers’ horror hit The Witch back in 2015, and has since appeared in M Night Shyamalan’s Split, opposite James McAvoy.
She’s set to reprise the role in follow-up Glass in 2018 and is will also star in Kristen Scott Thomas’ The Sea Change later this year.
Manchester-born Cooke,23, landed her breakout role in US drama Bates Motel, opposite Freddie Highmore, and has since had parts on the big screen in The Quiet Ones and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
The pair play two bored Connecticut teenagers who hatch a plan to get rid of their stepfather in Cory Finely’s darkly comic directorial debut.
“I think even though it was an amazing experience and I’d do it a million times over it was exhausting every day,” said Taylor-Joy.
“I just wasn’t sleeping on this film because you had to come in and just be completely on it. Neither of us could drop a line of mess up without ruining the whole take.”
The actresses said they were drawn to the project thanks to the richness and complexity of the characters.
“I thought Corey was a woman because he’s written two incredibly complex and rich female characters which doesn’t often happen,” said Taylor-Joy.
“And there’s no love interest, there’s no romance. It’s about these two women who are at loggerheads but work together, it was just great.”
Thoroughbreds is out in UK cinemas on March 9 2018.