Anya Taylor-Joy Dishes on Her Secret Wedding

Anya Taylor-Joy opens up about her secret wedding in a new interview with Variety. The Furiosa: A Mad Max Story star talks extensively about her normally private relationship with her husband, musician Malcolm McRae. After finally sharing details about her husband on Instagram last month, Taylor-Joy revealed she had married two years ago. Despite the couple eloping secretly in New Orleans on April Fools’ Day 2022, she did not wear a wedding ring or talk publicly about him. 

“We took our two best friends,” she says. “It was magical.” When asked how long they had dated, she told the outlet, “Oh gosh. We were together not very long, is the answer to that question. When you know, you know.”

They didn’t even have their parents present when they got married. “Malcolm FaceTimed his family from the church,” she says. “We were like, ‘Hiii!’ But they knew we were engaged for a little while.” Taylor-Joy added, “We got engaged while I was shooting ‘The Menu.’” Filming took place in the fall of 2021 in Savannah, Georgia.

Even though close family members had been informed about the engagement, “we kept it a secret from our friends until some newspaper blew it up,” she says. In October 2023, they held a 150-guest ceremony in Venice, Italy. In explaining the elopement, she said: “It was for us. It was romantic.”

The Queen’s Gambit actor was first photographed with McRae in New York before hosting Saturday Night Live in May 2021. The photos triggered dating rumors a few months after Taylor-Joy revealed to ELLE about having a partner in a May 2021 interview.

Taylor-Joy didn’t confirm they were dating immediately, but the two weren’t exactly hiding their affection. Walking around the Big Apple, the duo were seen holding hands and kissing several times, according to Page Six.

In March 2022, Taylor-Joy discussed her romance with McRae in an interview and made her red carpet debut with him at the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party. In January 2023, the couple made their first award show appearance as a couple at the Golden Globes after secretly getting married in April 2022. On April 2, 2024, McRae and Taylor-Joy shared photographs from their wedding day and announced they had got married two years earlier.

Taylor-Joy spoke to Entertainment Tonight shortly after about how they kept the wedding secret. “At the end of the day, it was about the two of us, and so we ran away with our two best friends and had the most magical day possible,” she said. “But I was also very grateful that a couple of months later, we were able to celebrate with our family.”

In terms of maintaining the secrecy, “we did our research, we were like pretty spy-orientated,” she revealed. “But honestly, it just—it kind of made it all the more special ’cause it just felt like a secret that we got to keep to ourselves.”