ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim recently sat down to speak with actors Anya Taylor-Joy (The Menu, The Witch, The Super Mario Bros. Movie) and Miles Teller (Whiplash, Top Gun: Maverick, Divergent) for their new movie, The Gorge, streaming on Apple TV+. They discussed how they met, their celebrity lookalikes, and playing their characters in the new sci-fi action movie.
“Two highly-trained operatives (Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy) are appointed to posts in guard towers on opposite sides of a vast and highly classified gorge, protecting the world from an undisclosed, mysterious evil that lurks within,” reads the official synopsis for The Gorge. “They bond from a distance while trying to stay vigilant in defending against an unseen enemy. When the cataclysmic threat to humanity is revealed to them, they must work together in a test of both their physical and mental strength to keep the secret in the gorge before it’s too late.”
The Gorge arrives on Apple TV+ on February 14.
Jonathan Sim: I gotta say the way that your characters meet in The Gorge is really interesting, and I thought it was so sweet. I’m wondering how you two met in real life. Was it on this movie, or had you guys met before and wanted to work together? What’s the story?
Anya Taylor-Joy: We’ve known of each other and then had met socially for years before this. We share an agent and we’re both very close to her and there were always a few actors that she represented that I really admired, but also just felt a kinship to. I cared about them despite not knowing them. And Miles was one of these people where I’d always kind of ask like, “how’s Miles doing? Like, I hope he’s okay.” That sounds as if I was worried about you.
Miles Teller: Hanging by a thread.
Taylor-Joy: I wanted to know if you were good. And then we met at one of his premieres in London. But unfortunately for us, that was also the same night that I met Miles’s wife and the two of us got on like a house on fire. So I became Keleigh’s friend for a while.
Teller: I was wallpaper. I was this guy this actress used to really care about and wonder about. No, now he’s just wallpaper.
Taylor-Joy: Absolutely not. But I feel very fortunate that I am now very good friends with both of you. And I love you both equally.
Teller: Yeah, there was a curiosity. We have mutual friends and things and we would see each other socially, but yeah. And we were always very friendly, but when you make a movie with somebody, you’re gonna find out who they really are. Because you cannot hide when you’re working that many hours in close proximity. So I’m very happy to say that Anya and I have become very close through making the project.
Taylor-Joy: Better friends.
Teller: Good buds.
Now, I got a fun question for you guys, but first, I want to show you guys a picture of one of my best friends. Her name is Rivka. Miles, she actually went to NYU Stonestreet. Everyone always tells her that she looks like Anya Taylor-Joy. Anya, I wanna get your thoughts on this.
Teller: Oh, I can see it. Yeah, she looks like a mixture of you and my wife.
Taylor-Joy: I see it! Yeah, she does! Well, she’s beautiful, so I take it as a compliment.
That leads me to my question for both of you. Who is your celebrity lookalike? Has anyone ever seen either of you and mistaken you for another actor?
Teller: Not quite because of the age gap, but I used to get John Cusack a lot.
Taylor-Joy: I can see that.
Teller: I’ve got a bit of a Say Anything moment in this movie.
Taylor-Joy: I don’t know that I’ve ever got anybody else. But you would be surprised at the amount of times that people tell me I look like Anya Taylor-Joy. It’s usually when I have a different hair color, and they’re like, “You look just like that girl but with dark hair.” And I’m like, “Yep. Yeah. That’s what it is. Yep.”
Now you’ve both acted in movies I love for years. Miles, I love Whiplash and Top Gun: Maverick. Anya, I love Split and Last Night in Soho. How did The Gorge challenge you both as actors and does it reveal a side of you that audiences perhaps have not seen before?
Taylor-Joy: I mean, this is definitely very action-heavy and in a different way than Furiosa. I feel like Furiosa is so scrappy and this was just a different level of being highly trained. Like the amount of different disciplines that we had to train in and get to do was just very exciting to me. And I also feel like both of these characters, despite the darkness with which they’re surrounded in, they’re quite different as people. Like, you wouldn’t necessarily class Drasa as a world-class sniper. I love the fact that she’s pretty punk rock and funny. Yeah, that was exciting for me.
Teller: I think with Levi, just the solitary confinement of it all and trying to get into that headspace and really trying to discover the inner life of someone who spends almost all of their time completely alone.
Thank you to Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller for speaking with ComingSoon about Apple TV+‘s The Gorge.
