Anya Taylor-Joy finds herself in a familiar setting this summer: In the desert, fighting to stay alive.
She did it in “Furiosa” and the upcoming “Dune: Part Three.” Now she's under the blazing California sun for “Lucky,” a propulsive Apple TV crime thriller that has her trading blows with goons, bloodying her otherworldly face.
“Listen, I’ve been to the desert so many times at this point it’s kind of unreal. I don’t look like a desert creature, and yet I’m always there and I love it,” says the actor. “People like to see me struggle, and they like me to survive. And, luckily, I enjoy doing it, too, so it works out.”
Taylor-Joy plays the title character in an adaptation of Marissa Stapley's novel about a con artist who wakes up in a hotel room and realizes she's been betrayed by a close ally and is forced on the run.
Lucky is soon pursued by both the FBI and a ruthless crime boss over a missing $10 million. Her widowed father isn't much help: He raised her to be a criminal but is now behind bars, only helping from a phone call.
“She’s at an inflection point when we meet her in the book and in the show where she’s got to chart her own course. She’s got to take things into her own hands, and she’s got to really decide how she wants to live her life,” says Lauren Neustadter, an executive producer.
The seven-episode series premieres Wednesday, and even in the first episode, Lucky has to fight her way out the closed trunk of a car and slam a screwdriver into the neck of a bad guy, finding herself alone in the desert. “How can someone so small cause so much trouble?” a goon asks.
“We see this character evolve from beginning to end. She starts off being all about the con, and the question is, ‘Where will that go? How will she evolve and who will she become?’ And I think that it’s one of the things that makes this show so special,” says Neustadter.
The series co-stars Annette Bening, Drew Starkey and Timothy Olyphant, with a female-centric soundtrack that includes a stirring theme song by Fiona Apple and tunes by Sleater-Kinney and Siouxsie Sioux.
Bening plays a cold-blooded mob leader who gets stuck between trying to save her son and tangling with her brutal boss and former lover. She's as likely to order a killing as be executed herself.
“She is an abused woman and she’s an abuser,” Bening says. “So, she’s so intriguing. I thought the writing was really good. And I did want to play this kind of borderline sociopathic woman.”
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company approached Taylor-Joy with the book, asking her to not just consider leading the series as an actor but also offering to make her debut as an executive producer.
“I remember crossing my fingers and thinking, ‘God, I really hope I like this book.’ And then I did and I fell in love with Lucky and I felt that I had something to contribute in this space, which I think if you’re coming on as an executive producer is the feeling that you want to have,” says Taylor-Joy.
The show — created by Jonathan Tropper and written and showrun alongside Cassie Pappas — is a crime thriller but with a family drama at its heart, one that prompts Lucky to wonder if there's another way to live.
“Thematically, that’s what Jonathan and I were really drawn to, is this idea of how much does family affect who you are versus how much can you break that path and write yourself a new one,” says Pappas.
Lucky has grown up grifting with her dad, stealing money-filled envelopes at birthday parties and faking injuries to get free hotel rooms. Now on the run, she leans into those skills to survive but also yearns for a better life.
“We all struggle against sort of the restraints of our past and the baggage we were given by even good parents and getting to a point where we can figure out who we are,” says Tropper. “Hers just has much higher stakes because the act of her trying to figure that out could get her killed.”
For Taylor-Joy, in addition to leaping off trucks, dodging killers and stealing cars onscreen, she got to make casting decisions and advise on the look and sound of the show behind the camera.
“I think we had a wonderful time making it, and I think you can feel that on the screen, despite the screwdrivers through the head,” she says with a laugh.
