Anya Taylor-Joy Asked To Be The Lighthouse's Mermaid & Director Said No

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The Northman star, Anya Taylor-Joy, is revealing that she had asked to be the mermaid in Robert Eggers' previous feature, The Lighthouse, but the director said no. The actress made her first film appearance in Eggers' directorial debut, The Witch, back in 2016 and has since gone on to become one of Hollywood's most sought after young stars. In the years since her performance as Thomasin in the critically acclaimed horror film, Taylor-Joy has landed leading roles in projects like Split, Thoroughbreds, Emma, Last Night in Soho, and the Netflix limited series The Queen's Gambit, for which she won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award. Now, in The Northman, set to be released on April 22, 2022, she finds herself teaming up with Eggers once again.

Despite her close connection with Eggers and eagerness to reunite following her work on The Witch, Taylor-Joy was absent from his last film, 2019's The Lighthouse, though with a focus on only two characters, it did not appear there was a role for her to play. In that film, Robert Pattinson and William Dafoe play lighthouse keepers in the 1890s who quickly descend into madness when a storm traps them on the small island where they are stationed. After Pattinson's character, Winslow, finds a scrimshaw of a mermaid tucked away in his decrepit lodging, he decides to keep it, though his fixation on it causes him to have hallucinations and a frighteningly realistic encounter with the creature.

Related: The Lighthouse Ending & Real Meaning Explained

Now, in speaking with NME, Anya Taylor-Joy reveals she had asked Robert Eggers to play the small part of the mermaid in The Lighthouse. She says that the director had called her about the film, but noted that there was no role for her,