Anya Taylor-Joy’s New Hair Looks A Lot Like Her ‘Queen’s Gambit’ Character

Anya Taylor-Joy’s natural hair color might have just left the building. Though she’s known to change up her hair for various roles, the actor has been wearing her platinum blonde hair in a long, mermaid-like style for a while now. Yesterday, however, the actor shared a selfie on Instagram showing off a drastically different look that has fans buzzing. In the photo, Taylor-Joy has a reddish-brown bob that falls just below her ears as well as baby bangs, a style which her followers were quick to point out strongly resembles that of her Queen’s Gambit character, Beth Harmon.

According to the post’s caption, Taylor-Joy shared the photo from Australia. She also shouts out her boyfriend, musician Malcolm McRae(with whom she’s posing in the photo), taking the opportunity to promote his upcoming show opening for Haim. Because the actor is on location filming the new Mad Max prequel, Furiosa, it’s more than likely that her hairstyle is a wig she’s wearing for her role as Imperator Furiosa, previously played by Charlize Theron.

However, that didn’t stop fans from flooding the comment section with the undeniable similarity the style has to Taylor-Joy’s character on The Queen’s Gambit.“Love the Beth Harmon look👩🏼‍🦰💙,” one commenter wrote. “It’s giving me Beth Harmon vibes,” said another.

Not only is Taylor-Joy’s role as Beth Harmon one of her most memorable, but the character’s hairstyle sparked a massive red hair trend. Suddenly, a wave of celebrities including Gigi Hadid and Ciara tried out the bold shade for themselves — though they probably weren’t directly inspired by the hit Netflix series (but maybe?).

In a 2021 interview with TZR, celebrity colorist Tracey Cunningham did attributed the recent trend to the hit Netflix series. When asked which celebrities she thinks have inspired the red hair trend, Cunningham said: “Emma Stone. The Queen's Gambit. Cruella. Abby [Abigail] Cowen, has the most beautiful natural red ever. She went blonde for a movie and couldn't wait to get back to the red hair.”

The red hair trend is still going strong in 2022. It was one of the most popular spring hair colors, with stars like Kendall Jenner and Kaia Gerber notably shirking their signature brunette locks in favor of red. Perhaps, like Jenner, Taylor-Joy will keep her red hair around after donning it for work purposes — only time will tell.