Anya Taylor-Joy, who most recently starred in the new Super Mario Bros. Movie as Princess Peach, has revealed that she learned to speak English through watching Jack Black's 2003 comedy film School Of Rock.
Born in Miami, Florida to British and Argentinian parents, Taylor-Joy spent much of her childhood in Argentina before moving to London, during which time she learned how to speak English having spent her early life as a Spanish-speaker.
In a new conversation with Buzzfeed, the actress expressed her enthusiasm for working on the new Mario film alongside Black, who plays the role of Bowser.
Declaring herself a diehard fan of the actor/musician, Taylor-Joy also states how she particularly likes Tenacious D, and frequently selects Tribute as her go-karaoke song.
"At the school I went to when I first moved to London, they would play School of Rock every Friday" the actress explains. "At that time, I didn’t really speak much English, if any, so that and Harry Potter and Jumanji are like how I learned English!”.
Of working with Black, she continues, "I didn’t realise I was going to be doing the press day for this movie with Jack Black, so when I read that, the sound that came out of me was just this high pitch shriek that I was not expecting! We haven’t met each other because we all recorded our parts individually, so I was super star-struck when I saw the schedule for today.
“I very seldom get like that, but I was just running around earlier like, ‘Oh my God, Tenacious D, this is amazing."
Elaborating on how she loves to sing Tribute at Karaoke, she says: “I do all the voices. That’s always awesome".
After being encouraged by the interviewer to strike up a duet with Black on the song, Taylor-Joy replies: "I'd die. Literally, I think part of the reason why my best friend and I decided we were friends in the space of an evening was because she started singing it once, and I leapt up from the dining room table and was like, 'We got this, we're gonna perform the hell out of this right now!'"
Meanwhile, Black has become the subject of much online conversation following the release of a gloriously unhinged official music video for his new single Peaches, a ballad he wrote for The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is in cinemas now.
