The Queen’s Gambit, Anya Taylor-Joy win Golden Globes

by Carlos Alberto Colodro
3/2/2021 – Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” was a major success in 2020, with the streaming service announcing in November that 62 million viewers had watched the limited series since its debut on October 23. The series’ success has now also been recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as Anya Taylor-Joy won the Golden Globe for ‘best actress in a miniseries or television film’ and the series won the ‘best miniseries or television film’ award.
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“I love chess”

Right before Netflix announced that 62 million viewers had watched “The Queen’s Gambit” merely a month after it had been released, we published a piece noting that the series’ success had also helped the popularization of chess worldwide. In it, we compiled four of the many positive reviews the series had received. Rachel Syme wrote for the New Yorker:

What makes “The Queen’s Gambit” so satisfying comes in large measure from the character Taylor-Joy brings to screen: a charming, elegant weirdo who delivers her lines with a cool, wintergreen snap, and never really reacts the way one might expect. [...] The chess masters Garry Kasparov and Bruce Pandolfini, who consulted on the show, taught Taylor-Joy how professionals move the pieces along the board, but, as she told the magazine Chess Life, she developed her own way of gliding her hands across the board.

Three months later, the excellent work done by Taylor-Joy was rewarded with a Golden Globe, as she beat the likes of Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman in the category ‘Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television’.

The following exchange was included in an interview for Variety:

Interviewer: At this point, are you playing chess all the time, or you’ve had enough for a lifetime and don’t care if you see another chessboard again?

Taylor-Joy: Oh, goodness, I could never say that, I love chess! I’ve had to pick up new skills for the movies that I’ve been doing, so I’m looking forward to get some time off so I can get back to chess.

Later on, the American-born Argentine-British actress and model was asked what was the most surprising thing she had discovered by learning how to play chess. She responded:

How much fun it is to punctuate a feeling by moving a piece.

The period drama miniseries based on Walter Tevis’ novel also took home the big prize as the ‘Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television’. Written and directed by Scott Frank — who created it with Allan Scott — the miniseries received the award in a category that had Small Axe, Unorthodox, The Undoing and Normal People as the other nominees.

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Carlos Colodro is a Hispanic Philologist from Bolivia. He works as a freelance translator and writer since 2012. A lot of his work is done in chess-related texts, as the game is one of his biggest interests, along with literature and music.

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