Actress Anya Taylor-Joy has shared how her family helped her deal with bullies making fun of her looks.

During an appearance on the talk show The Drew Barrymore Show, The Queen’s Gambit star revealed her bullied past.

“I was very, very lucky with my parents because when I was bullied for my looks my mom always said you look at the inside of somebody… you look at the inside of somebody you don’t look at class, you don’t look at anything like that,” Taylor-Joy said.

She continued, “You don’t look at what they do for a job, it’s just do you like that person’s heart? And I really have to give a big shout out to my mom for that because it was really helpful,”

This is not the first time the 26-year-old has been vocal about her childhood struggles. 

Back in the 2021 interview with Entertainment Tonight, she touched on the subject of bullying in her life, “I spent the first two years in England playing hand-clap games with plants — if you slap them hard enough, they clap back — and learning how to read. That was my existence. I didn’t hang out with other kids. I was clearly a very normal child.”

Anya Taylor-Joy, who secretly married boyfriend Malcolm McRae over the summer, grew up isolated as her family moved from Buenos Aires, Argentina to the UK as a kid.

Although she was made fun of for having wide-set eyes and even being stuffed into lockers, she found her saving grace when she entered the entertainment industry where she fit right in.

“I needed to believe in a place where I could be valued and appreciated, and actually have something to contribute rather than constantly feeling like, ‘What is wrong with me, and why do I not fit in?'” Taylor-Joy shared with the outlet.

“I’ve finally found someone (Malcolm McRae) who will happily sit in silence with me reading. We’re basically 80 years old and 7 at the same time, and it works really well,” she elaborated.