Taylor Russell. If you haven't already heard that name, it's time to familiarise yourself with it because you'll be hearing a lot more about this incredibly talented rising star.
Hollywood is buzzing all about the new movie Bones & All, which, yes, it does star our beloved Timothée Chalamet, but don't be mistaken because it is actually Taylor who takes on the lead in the movie.
Based on Camille DeAngelis' novel of the same name, the movie star Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly, a young woman who suffers from a condition that sees her wanting to eat other humans, something that she has had since she was a child. (Is anybody thinking of Silence of the Lambs, or just us?) Anyways, after being abandoned by her mother on her sixteenth birthday, Maren falls in love with a fellow cannibalism lover and intense drifter Lee (Timothée). The pair embark on a cross-country trip during Ronald Reagan's America, where all roads lead them back to their terrifying pasts….
Given the intense nature of the plot, you can be sure that director Luca Guadagnino searched far and wide to find the perfect Maren, and we don't blame him for landing his sights on 28-year-old Taylor.
Oscar buzz is in the air.
So, with Bones & All opening up to critical acclaim on the film festival circuit, how exactly did Taylor become Hollywood's most sought-after rising star?
Well, Canadian-born Taylor made her professional acting debut ten years earlier with a small guest role in an episode of the medical drama series Emily Owens, M.D. A further slate of appearances came Taylor's way in the form of Lifetime's television film The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story alongside the show's original cast member, Lark Voorhies.
Other acting credentials included the drama series Strange Empire, the science-fiction series Falling Skies and the horror series Dead of Summer.
After paying her dues over several years, Taylor first earned recognition in 2018 for her starring role as Judy Robinson in the science fiction Netflix series Lost in Space, and also took the lead in 2019's psychological horror film Escape Room, which was a huge success. She reprised her role of Zoey Davis in the sequel Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, which was just as commercially successful. She also won praise for Edward Shults' family drama Waves in 2019.
She is now gearing up for the release of her biggest film to date, Bones & All, which will hit cinemas on November 23. Speaking of the movie in a new interview with Homme Girls, Taylor said she "loved the physical release" of playing a cannibal. "Maybe that sounds strange. Not that I needed that type of physical release in my life, but you know, preparing emotionally for a character, you think about what you want to say through them, and what they want to say through you. Some characters can be very bottled up, and you can't do much physically, but here, it was all about body, all about movement - your mouth, your hands.
"I thought a lot about wanting to feel more like a creature. I think the gift of the cannibalism is that it's so different than being a normal human being, you're thinking about the physical elements in a way that you wouldn't if you were working on a project that wasn't so physically demanding."
How Taylor brings her character to life in Bones & All is so impressive that critics have been raving about her performance.
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"If this proves a star-making turn for Taylor Russell, the way that "Call Me By Your Name" proved for Chalamet, then it will be well deserved, a testimony to Guadagnino's casting prowess," IndieWire said. TIME also noted that while Chalamet is the "bigger star", Russell "owns the movie".
While Taylor's star power is rising, it's interesting to note that she is ironically quite resistant to the notion of fame. "I mean, I love acting and being out there and the feeling of being on a set... It gives me so much," she explained to Byrdie. "At the same time, there's this feeling I have that if people are looking at me... it almost feels like a sort of death to some degree. I don't know if I can handle it; it's almost like a claustrophobia."
While Taylor navigates her journey with fame, we can only continue to sing her praises and raise a toast to her success and bright future in Hollywood.
“I had no desire to have anything to do with this energy”.
