<\/p>\n
NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 Anya Taylor-Joy<\/a> finds herself in a familiar setting this summer: In the desert, fighting to stay alive.<\/p>\n She did it in \u201cFuriosa\u201d<\/a> and the upcoming \u201cDune: Part Three.\u201d<\/a> Now she’s under the blazing California sun for \u201cLucky,\u201d a propulsive Apple TV crime thriller that has her trading blows with goons, bloodying her otherworldly face.<\/p>\n \u201cListen, I\u2019ve been to the desert so many times at this point it\u2019s kind of unreal. I don\u2019t look like a desert creature, and yet I\u2019m always there and I love it,\u201d says the actor. \u201cPeople like to see me struggle, and they like me to survive. And, luckily, I enjoy doing it, too, so it works out.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor-Joy plays the title character in an adaptation of Marissa Stapley’s novel about a con artist who wakes up in a hotel room and realizes she’s been betrayed by a close ally and is forced on the run. <\/p>\n Lucky is soon pursued by both the FBI and a ruthless crime boss over a missing $10 million. Her widowed father isn’t much help: He raised her to be a criminal but is now behind bars, only helping from a phone call. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s at an inflection point when we meet her in the book and in the show where she\u2019s got to chart her own course. She\u2019s got to take things into her own hands, and she\u2019s got to really decide how she wants to live her life,\u201d says Lauren Neustadter, an executive producer.<\/p>\n A character evolves<\/p>\n The seven-episode series premieres Wednesday, and even in the first episode, Lucky has to fight her way out the closed trunk of a car and slam a screwdriver into the neck of a bad guy, finding herself alone in the desert. \u201cHow can someone so small cause so much trouble?\u201d a goon asks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see this character evolve from beginning to end. She starts off being all about the con, and the question is, \u2018Where will that go? How will she evolve and who will she become?\u2019 And I think that it\u2019s one of the things that makes this show so special,\u201d says Neustadter.<\/p>\n The series co-stars Annette Bening, Drew Starkey and Timothy Olyphant, with a female-centric soundtrack that includes a stirring theme song by Fiona Apple and tunes by Sleater-Kinney and Siouxsie Sioux.<\/p>\n Bening plays a cold-blooded mob leader who gets stuck between trying to save her son and tangling with her brutal boss and former lover. She’s as likely to order a killing as be executed herself.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is an abused woman and she\u2019s an abuser,\u201d Bening says. \u201cSo, she\u2019s so intriguing. I thought the writing was really good. And I did want to play this kind of borderline sociopathic woman.\u201d<\/p>\n Reese Witherspoon\u2019s Hello Sunshine media company approached Taylor-Joy with the book, asking her to not just consider leading the series as an actor but also offering to make her debut as an executive producer.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember crossing my fingers and thinking, \u2018God, I really hope I like this book.\u2019 And then I did and I fell in love with Lucky and I felt that I had something to contribute in this space, which I think if you\u2019re coming on as an executive producer is the feeling that you want to have,\u201d says Taylor-Joy.<\/p>\n The show \u2014 created by Jonathan Tropper and written and showrun alongside Cassie Pappas \u2014 is a crime thriller but with a family drama at its heart, one that prompts Lucky to wonder if there’s another way to live. <\/p>\n \u201cThematically, that\u2019s what Jonathan and I were really drawn to, is this idea of how much does family affect who you are versus how much can you break that path and write yourself a new one,\u201d says Pappas.<\/p>\n Lucky leans into grifting skills to survive<\/p>\n Lucky has grown up grifting with her dad, stealing money-filled envelopes at birthday parties and faking injuries to get free hotel rooms. Now on the run, she leans into those skills to survive but also yearns for a better life.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all struggle against sort of the restraints of our past and the baggage we were given by even good parents and getting to a point where we can figure out who we are,\u201d says Tropper. \u201cHers just has much higher stakes because the act of her trying to figure that out could get her killed.\u201d<\/p>\n For Taylor-Joy, in addition to leaping off trucks, dodging killers and stealing cars onscreen, she got to make casting decisions and advise on the look and sound of the show behind the camera.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we had a wonderful time making it, and I think you can feel that on the screen, despite the screwdrivers through the head,\u201d she says with a laugh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.clickorlando.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW YORK \u2013 Anya Taylor-Joy finds herself in a familiar setting this summer: In the desert, fighting to stay alive. She did it in \u201cFuriosa\u201d and the upcoming \u201cDune: Part Three.\u201d Now she’s under the blazing California sun for \u201cLucky,\u201d a propulsive Apple TV crime thriller that has her trading blows with goons, bloodying her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2500275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[354433,356677,492578,21741,390545,489274,356675,345544,320490],"class_list":["post-2500274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-annette-bening","tag-anya-taylor-joy","tag-drew-starkey","tag-entertainment","tag-fiona-apple","tag-lauren-neustadter","tag-marissa-stapley","tag-reese-witherspoon","tag-timothy-olyphant"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Anya-Taylor-Joy-is-bloodied-and-battling-in-Apple-TVs-crime.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2500274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2500276,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500274\/revisions\/2500276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2500275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2500274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2500274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2500274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}