By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Anya Taylor-Joy, the gifted young actress who broke out in THE WITCH and starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s hit thriller SPLIT, will next be seen in the horror film MARROWBONE. We’ve got exclusive words with Taylor-Joy about the movie, along with the trailer, poster and details of the release.
MARROWBONE is coming to select theaters, VOD, Amazon Video and iTunes April 13 from Magnet Releasing. It marks the directorial debut of Sergio G. Sánchez, who wrote J.A. Bayona’s THE ORPHANAGE and THE IMPOSSIBLE, and also stars George MacKay, Charlie Heaton (STRANGER THINGS), Mia Goth (THE CURE FOR WELLNESS), Matthew Stagg, Nicola Harrison and Kyle Soller. Taylor-Joy explains the storyline to RUE MORGUE: “It’s about a family that comes over from England to America; you don’t know why, but you know that they’re escaping from something. Unfortunately, their mother dies, and they have to keep it a secret. Their only connection to the outside world is my character Allie, and as the story goes on, you start to realize that things aren’t what you think they are. Everything gets kind of turned on its head.
“Allie is unlike any character I’ve ever played before,” Taylor-Joy continues, “in the sense that she has her shit together. Actually, that’s not true; Charlotte [in 2016’s BARRY] has her shit together pretty well, but unfortunately she falls victim to unrequited love, and that affects her a little bit. But Allie’s just a beautiful role; she and Jack [MacKay] have this great love. His journey is so intense and dramatic, and Allie is kind of the rock who stands by him and loves him.”
That emotion suffused the entire MARROWBONE experience for the actress. “I was going through a hard time before I did that movie, and being in Spain with all the local crew was just great. The four of us—Mia, Charlie, George and I—became so close that we really were like a family. And to portray that kind of great love on screen—I was amazed at the power of it. I’ve never done anything like that.”
She was equally enamored of her first-time director. “It takes a very strong filmmaker to trust the people he’s given his characters to,” she says. “There would be moments when I was like, ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ and instead of saying, ‘You’re wrong, do it this way,’ he trusted us from the beginning. He was so open to line changes or ‘This feels more natural here’ or whatever, as long as you could validate it. As a first-time director, that might be something that someone who was less confident would be a little more egomaniacal about. But he’s such a warm man that we could have really honest conversations. I’ve been lucky that all of my directors have listened to my voice, and trusted my instincts, and he was no different.”
So is MARROWBONE as much a love story as a genre film? I’ve never really seen any of my movies as genre movies,” Taylor-Joy notes. “There are obviously those elements in MARROWBONE, and it’s very, very dark, but I don’t necessarily equate darkness solely to genre. It’s just an epic film.”
