What chess prodigy did Anya Taylor-Joy play in The Queen's Gambit?

The chess prodigy Anya Taylor-Joy played in The Queen's Gambit is Beth Harmon.

Beth is a fictional orphan whose extraordinary talent for chess emerges at a Kentucky state orphanage. Taylor-Joy portrays Beth as a young adult, tracing her rise from local tournaments to international competition while she struggles with addiction, loneliness, and the expectations placed on a gifted woman in the 1960s.

The character's name is sometimes confused with Alma Wheatley, Beth's adoptive mother, or Jolene, her friend from the orphanage. Cleo is another person Beth encounters, but none of those characters is the central chess prodigy.

The limited series is based on Walter Tevis's 1983 novel and uses chess as both a competitive game and a visual language for Beth's imagination. Taylor-Joy's performance, alongside younger portrayals by Isla Johnston, helped make Beth one of television's most recognizable fictional chess players.