“The Queen’s Gambit” might have ended with a decisive checkmate. But for Anya Taylor-Joy, who played Beth Harmon, a young woman growing up in an orphanage who battles drug and alcohol addiction to become a chess prodigy, that was not the end of her story.
Looking back on her time playing the lead role of the breakout Netflix miniseries, for which she won the Golden Globe for best actress in a limited series, Taylor-Joy told Deadline that if a second season were to happen, “It would be very interesting to see how Beth would be as a mother, now that she’s sober and more cognizant of the demons that pull her down.”
Beth’s life was characterized by her troubled upbringing, which Taylor-Joy describes as motivating her “singular focus, this kind of drive and hunger for something where nothing else mattered. A priority such as ‘I hope this person doesn’t think me rude, if I’m more abrupt with them’ — that doesn’t figure [into her]; she’s thinking about her goal.”
So this potential future would require her to be responsible for not only herself, but her child as well. How would someone with such a “singular” drive handle that? Beth’s “biggest enemy is herself,” but the ultimate message of the show, in Taylor-Joy’s famously striking eyes, is that “[e]ven if you’re brilliant, you still need help. We work better with support, and I think Beth sees the beauty in the support that she garners eventually.”
But before any of you get too excited about returning to the world of “The Queen’s Gambit,” Taylor-Joy also noted that as “surreal and very wonderful” as it is that the audience wants a second season, it was never something she or series creator Scott Frank ever discussed. “That said, never say ‘never’ in Hollywood,” she added.
The Queen’s Gambit was Anya Taylor-Joy’s ‘undeniable’ ‘knockout’ performance
While Anya Taylor-Joy had been making a name for herself since she made her big screen debut in horror auteur Robert Eggers’ freshman film “The Witch,” it was “The Queen’s Gambit” that turned the British-Argentine actress into a household name. The series premiered at the height of the COVID lockdowns, giving fans both an escape from their uncertainty while also an opportunity for some introspection, which the actress credits with playing a role in the show’s success. “I think all of us living at home and being locked up, we’re probably confronting a lot more of ourselves than we’re used to, because we are used to being distracted,” she told Deadline. “When you’re locked up in your house, there’s only a certain amount of room to run away from yourself.”
The series received immediate acclaim when it premiered, with TVLine critic Dave Nemetz saying that “[e]ven if you don’t know a bishop from a rook … Taylor-Joy’s undeniable performance makes this one a winner.”
“The Queen’s Gambit” would go on to be named one of the best shows of 2020. It was also Netflix’s most watched limited series until it was usurped by “Adolescence” in 2025.
While we may not see Beth Harmon’s journey through motherhood, both Anya Taylor-Joy and “The Queen’s Gambit” series creator Scott Frank are both returning to Netflix: Taylor-Joy is set to star in an adaptation of the novel “How to Kill Your Family,” and Scott Frank’s new series, the British crime thriller “Dept. Q” has been renewed for a second season.
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