Anya Taylor-Joy Explains That Awkward Love Scene In The Queen’s Gambit
“Love is inherently quite funny and awkward,” Queen’s Gambit star Anya Taylor-Joy told Refinery29 over the phone. “So I’m really glad it was important for Scott to let us see that experience.” “Scott” is Scott Frank, the director and co-writer of The Queen’s Gambit. Frank unabashedly leans into the awkwardness of sx for Taylor-Joy genius heroine Beth Harmon.
“The first time Beth had sex with someone, I added a pat. And then I got scared Scott was going to say, ‘You gotta take that off,'” Taylor-Joy continued. “And I was like, ‘But, she doesn’t know how to finish anything.'”
Taylor-Joy was right — and Frank kept his “pat,” which viewers can find in the first five minutes of the fourth “Middle Game” episode. It was during this episode that, as Taylor-Joy said, Beth had her first sexual experience. It’s wildly unsatisfying. She’s basically still fully clothed. After Beth’s unnamed hookup collapses into a stoned stupor, she remains lying in bed, unsure of how to move on. As he falls asleep, all Beth can do is give him two resounding pats on the shoulder.
“Whenever she’s played chess, she’s always shaken hands with someone, so she feels like she has to close the chapter on what just happened,” Taylor-Joy says. She’s like, ‘Bravo. You tried. Thank you.'”
Most shows would only be brave enough to have a cringe-worthy love scene like Beth’s premiere. The Queen’s Gambit is full of it — and devoid of the nudity and hookups that so many supposedly sexy dramas binge on just to prove their edge. Instead, viewers typically glimpse Beth’s sexuality through her uncomfortable post-coital moments. Following the success of Jane Austen’s adaptation of Emma this spring, star Taylor-Joy has become the go-to actress for portraying the curves of female desire without ever needing her character to take off a glove, let alone reveal. her body in a love scene. For Taylor-Joy, such a visually modest approach was the only way for viewers to really get to know Beth Harmon.
“With Beth, it’s not that [explicit nudity] would hurt the story, it wouldn’t add anything. You take this journey with her, and the journey is with her mind,” Taylor-Joy (a self-proclaimed “sucker” for romantic love scenes in movies) said. “There’s nothing physical about it, other than the abuse she puts her body through through substances.
Beth’s most intriguing post-love scenes appear in the Queens Gambit series cold open premiere and reappear for full context in the sixth episode “Adjournment.” In this final chapter, Beth meets the beautiful model Cleo (Millie Brady) in the bar of her Paris hotel. The atmosphere is obviously pretty. We see Cleo persuading Beth to chat with some men at a nearby table. But, in the morning, Cleo is naked in Beth’s bed – neither of the men. Queen’s Gambit never twists its metaphorical hands on this implicitly queer romantic development.
“One of my favorite things about Beth is because she exists halfway outside of society, she’s really confused every time people bring her gender into everything. She really doesn’t understand what it has to do. to do with the punches she just delivered to her opponent,” Taylor-Joy began. “The same way she doesn’t really understand what the ’60s were telling people was appropriate.
It’s this disinterest in standards that brings Beth to Cleo in Paris. “From the second Beth sees Cleo for the first time, she’s mesmerized by her,” Taylor-Joy said. “So with the guys in the background [at the hotel], she’s like, ‘Hey, you’re not really interesting. Cleo, you’re cool.
Still, even Taylor-Joy admits that Beth could be a little nicer to her conquests. “I really liked being able to explore Beth’s sexuality with her. She’s so not great with people. She’s got very little tact,” she explained. from the audience, when I looked back at it, I was like, ‘Ooh, Beth. That wasn’t very well done. You might have to apologize to that person afterwards.’
For Taylor-Joy, Beth’s breakup conversation with fellow chess prodigy Benny (Thrones Brodie-Sangster from Game of Thrones) is an example of one of those harrowing scenes. “He’s like, ‘Wait a second. You just left me and basically you said you wanted to be drunk and you didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. And now you’re asking me for money? And she’s like , ‘Yeah?’ “Taylor-Joy recalled. “Every time I hear it, I’m like, ‘Ooh. Wrong move.'”
Knowing chess player Beth, she would be proud to say that she kept all her “bad moves” in the bedroom.
