It's turning into a busy year for Anya Taylor-Joy. Following the news last month that she's nabbed the lead role in Edgar Wright's Last Night In Soho comes word that she'll also be starring in a miniseries for Godless creator Scott Frank called Queen's Gambit.
Like Godless, this has found a home at Netflix, but unlike the Western drama, it's not one that Frank has been shepherding through development for years. Instead, it comes tinged with cinematic tragedy as Heath Ledger was set to make his directorial debut with a film version in 2007 before his untimely death early the following year.
Ledger had reached the stage of offering the main role to Ellen Page; now Taylor-Joy will take on the story, adapted from Walter Tevis' 1983 novel. It's set during the Cold War and will follow orphan chess prodigy Beth Harmon from the age of eight to twenty-two, as she struggles with addiction in a quest to become the greatest chess player in the world.
Frank's working with Allan Scott to write the new series, and it should be filming this year. Taylor-Joy has a voice role in Playmobil: The Movie and will also be heard in the Dark Crystal TV spin-off. She's one of the leads in Fox's The New Mutants, though that one is currently wavering between a cinema slot and the possibility that it might end up on a streaming service.
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