Anya-Josephine Marie Taylor-Joy is an American actress. Born in Miami and raised in Buenos Aires and London, she left school at the age of 16 to pursue an acting career. After a series of small television roles, her breakthrough came with a leading role in the horror film The Witch.

Taylor-Joy was born on 16 April 1996 in Miami, Florida, to Dennis Alan Taylor, a former banker, and Jennifer Marina Joy, a psychologist. Her father is an Argentine of English and Scottish descent, the son of a British father and an Anglo-Argentine mother. Her mother was born in Zambia to an English diplomat father, David Joy, and a Spanish mother from Barcelona. She has stated that her birth in Miami was a "fluke", since her parents had been vacationing in the city at the time; because of her birthplace, she holds American citizenship due to the country's jus soli nationality law. She is the youngest of six siblings, four of whom are from her father's previous marriage.