The delivery of Anya Taylor-Joy and the nightmare of working with a satanic goat: this was the filming of “The Witch”

With less than 20 years, Anya Taylor-Joy sent an audition tape for an innovative director’s project Robert Eggers. the movie The witch (2015), originally titled The Witch and under the A24 label, it became the debut of both: as a movie star and filmmaker, respectively.

“It was a normal casting and I swear to God that I didn’t think it was going to be my role. And suddenly they called me,” he said in 2016 during an interview with the channel C5N during his time in Argentina to participate in the local Comic-Con.

In that same conversation, Taylor-Joy admitted that she felt “very lucky,” and that the horror film marked a before and after in her career: “Suddenly life changed from one day to the next”.

The production, directed and written by Eggers, follows a 17th century Puritan family that is threatened by a sinister atmosphere coming from the woods in New England.

“This film is totally unique. I have never seen anything like this“It seems to me that most people have never seen something like this,” said the actress of Argentine origin in dialogue with Univision. “It’s a movie that thinks the audience is very intelligent.”

Anya Taylor-Joy she played the protagonist, Thomasin, the eldest daughter of William and Katherine; and on whom the blame falls for his younger brother, baby Samuel. The little boy was kidnapped by a forest witch to sacrifice him and use his blood and fat to be able to fly.

Prior to this, his family had been banished from their colony of origin due to religious disputes. For this reason, the loss of faith is a very present theme in the film, as well as the constant temptation of the Devil.

About her character, the artist explained to C5N: “You don’t know what he’s thinking all the time. It was very interesting to do it, because it’s like in each scene I could make it a little bit more badass, a little bit more good-looking. “I could model it.”

In addition to the tone of The witch —arranged by Robert Eggers—, Taylor-Joy’s performance was applauded at film festivals, where she was present to talk to the press and viewers during film gathering events and screenings.

“I feel at home and safe when I’m on a film set,” Taylor-Joy said for PremiereScene during the British Film Institute red carpet and drew a contrast with his then-new experience of going to film festivals: “This, all of this, It’s a little new and scary for me.”.

The film, released a decade ago, was part of a new wave of horror between 2010 and 2020, a period where horror was approached from different approaches and which still maintains an influence today.

The resource of screamer and the scares were not typical of Eggers’ choice. The witch It has a slow and gentle pace: it seems that not much happens until the members of the family begin to be affected, either through physical or mental discomfort.

However, there was another element that also kept in mind the idea that Satan is closer to us than we expect and that was the goat Charlie, named Black Phillip in the film by the twins Mercy and Jonás, Thomasin’s brothers.

The director chose the animal actor from a catalog presented by trainer Anna Kilch. Its horns were very long and it weighed 95 kilogramsaccording to its description. It was the one that most conveyed the essence of the character.

“It had bigger horns. Goats don’t have bigger horns than that,” Kilch explained to The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. However, Charlie saw the beginning and end of his career as a star in this film, due to his bad behavior during filming.

To Robert EggersCharlie was a pain to work with. “If we wanted him to do something violent, he wanted to go to sleep. If he was supposed to stay still, ran like crazy“He explained to the same medium.

That same year, Ralph Ineson He also shared his experiences with his four-legged, big-horned co-star. In addition to having to lose 30 pounds to play a hungry farmer and father, he had to endure Charlie’s beatings.

“It was horrible. Really horrible. From the moment we saw each other, It was like hate at first sight“, he recalled to THR. “He had two ways: relax and do nothing, or attack me.”

Just four days into filming, the actor suffered a dislocated tendon from Charlie’s serrated horns that rammed his ribs. In dialogue with the portal FangoriaHe explained that he needed emergency medical attention.

“He took me to the emergency room three times.; On one occasion he dislocated a tendon in my rib. We had a real warbut when you see it on the screen, it looks great,” Ineson acknowledged.

As a director, Eggers never intended to try CGI to replace his most difficult actor and tried to compensate with a puppet half his size and then one the size of a cow, but it never worked.

Charlie could do better than practical effects, but his chaotic personality ruined the scheduled scenes. Finally, a number of sequences had to be left behind along the way due to the impossibility of being realized.

“You can’t train a goat; They are satanic animals“They do exactly what they want when they want,” he concluded. Ralph Ineson when remembering the experience.

At one point in the movie, Black Phillip the goat He had to get up on his hind legs and stay there for a moment, so that he could scare the twin boys who kept bothering him.

For safety, a rope, which was later digitally erased, was needed to keep Charlie in check and from injuring any actors during this scene.

“It was a difficult shot, but he did it perfectly several times, so we were very happy with him,” said caregiver Anna Kilch. As to Robert Eggershis decision was firm: I would never work with that goat again..

In fact, Charlie never got a role as important as that again. He had only one chance to shine and he did so when he dazzled the public after the premiere of The witch in 2015.

In addition to the promotion of Anya Taylor-Joy, there was a lot of discussion about Charlie’s talent and the realism of having a “satanic goat” on set. Ineson himself was amused that people made the goat famous, even more than them.

“It’s wonderful that his fantastic performance is giving the film notoriety, but There’s a little part of me that thinks, ‘Really? That bastard?’“, he expressed to THR.

Charlie retired from acting after a minor role in the film It Comes at Night (2017), also distributed by A24. Currently, he is banned from working in the movies and is spending his retirement days on a farm in North Carolina.