Teyana Taylor Has Arrived: The Veteran Star on Her Breakout Year

Teyana Taylor is an actor, a singer, a choreographer, a director, and perhaps surprisingly, a hugger.

She comes off with a certain fierce confidence—almost intimidating with the angularity of her face, the muscularity of her shape, and the intensity of her gaze. It’s not something she has always been able to shed. It seems like when people look at her, they are just looking at her.

That’s not always what she’s after. So before our lunch at Red Rooster Harlem on Lenox Avenue, Taylor’s old stomping grounds, she greets the restaurant staff, and me, each with an embrace before ordering a pineapple margarita, cornbread, mac and greens, and chicken and waffles (wings only, please). To her, the spot felt like home: “I’m a Harlem girl for real, for real.” Taylor grew up just blocks away, but now we’re sitting in a private room at the celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson’s restaurant, where they are playing her music to welcome her back.

“Soon we’re going to have your menu item on there,” our server tells Taylor. The restaurant already has a drink named for her: the Rose in Harlem, made with “vodka, floral liquor, lychee, and lemon juice.” What will her dish be? “Whatever she decides,” he says.

These days it’s almost like you can’t get away from Taylor. She’s a favorite for an Oscar nomination for her role in One Battle After Another, starring alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio Del Toro. She plays a cop in The Rip, the upcoming crime thriller with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. And she did a TV show too, Ryan Murphy’s All’s Fair with Kim Kardashian, Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, and Niecy Nash-Betts. Or maybe I should say they all did these projects with Taylor, whose star seems to be reaching new heights after years of persistence in the entertainment industry.

By any standard measure, Taylor has been poised for this time in the spotlight for a while. Her career began at just 15 years old, when she worked on Beyoncé’s “Ring the Alarm” video, teaching the singer how to do the chicken noodle soup dance. “I was one of them busybody kids,” Taylor, 35, says. “I did everything. I was in a choir and had my own Bible study class. I was running track. I was choreographing.” A few years later she would release her debut single, “Google Me”—a nice foreshadowing of her future name recognition—and sign with labels like Pharrell Williams’s Star Trak Entertainment, and eventually Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music and Def Jam. Even as a teen and a young woman, it seemed like Taylor could not stop moving. She went on to release four studio albums, a handful of mixtapes, and more than a dozen singles in a span of 10-plus years.

Still, when she wasn’t getting the support she wanted from Def Jam five years ago, she announced she would retire from music to focus on her other interests. “Maybe it’s the Sag in me,” she says, referring to her astrological sign, Sagittarius. “We’re gonna pivot. We’re going to do whatever we put our hearts to. And I never had one thing. I was the dreamer that wanted to make my dreams a reality.”

She’s acted along the way, picking up parts in Madea’s Big Happy Family, where her over-the-top depiction of a gum-smacking, nagging baby mama became a meme; Coming 2 America, where she played Bopoto, the daughter of Wesley Snipes’s character; and recently Straw, where she played a levelheaded detective in the Netflix mega-drama starring Taraji P. Henson. But it was her role in 2023’s A Thousand and One that cemented Taylor as a dramatic actor worthy of critical attention. Playing Inez, a mother who kidnaps a six-year-old boy out of the foster care system and raises him as her own, showed another side of her as an actor. She could be a leading lady—and a complicated one at that—too.

“Oh my God, it’s been like, busy, busy, busy,” she says. “But in the best way, of course. I think going from being able to work with Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, I’m like, this is a lot…. To see people handling me with so much care and love, it’s been like I’ve been moving from master class to master class.” She considers One Battle After Another the “fucking ultimate master class” and asks herself rhetorically, almost quizzically, “It’s like, I am able to be the best version of myself because I’m surrounded by the best of the best?”

Despite the attention, Taylor hesitates to talk about the Oscar-shaped elephant in the room. “It’s so crazy, because I don’t like to jinx it,” she says. “I get so shy when everybody starts talking about award season and stuff.”

“Being with Sarah Paulson and Glenn Close and Naomi Watts and Niecy Nash and Kim Kardashian”—almost all of whom have portfolios full of nominations for their work—“it’s like, they’re all in my ear. Like, ‘You better get ready, you gotta get ready.’ I’m like, oh my God. I try not to get my head too wrapped around me, just trying to stay grounded and not getting to a place where I’m obsessed with the outcome.”

When I first met Taylor in Los Angeles, it may as well have been Sunday morning, because she was delivering something like a sermon.

“I remember when there was a time where I had nothing to balance,” she says, sitting crisscross applesauce on an extra-extra-large daybed in the Hollywood Roosevelt. “I couldn’t secure a movie role. I was shelved.” Faith has a strong place in Taylor’s life, and she describes waiting and praying that her dreams would come to fruition. “Every single prayer you’ve ever prayed has been answered. Here’s the answer. I told you, this was always yours. You just needed to do the work to get there and you needed to be patient,” she remembers saying to herself during those years when she felt her career stalling. Her role in One Battle After Another has been one of those answered prayers. Taylor’s character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, is leading a revolution with her partner by her side—until she gives birth to their daughter and soon after abandons the family. There were still fights to fight and Perfidia’s restlessness and struggles adjusting to motherhood led her to leave. She’s another complicated character who deals with motherhood in ways that, maybe, Taylor would not.

“I think one thing that everybody will be able to agree on is that she’s a badass,” Taylor says. “And she’s unapologetically herself. And when you see this woman”—who, after living a high-octane life of staging high-risk attacks targeting political figures and enterprises, is at home with her baby—“…even the things you don’t agree with, you’ll still empathize.”

Taylor’s own daughters, 10-year-old Junie and 5-year-old Rue, play tag in the hallway as we speak—running as their mother discusses a role that had her sprinting from the cops who were on her tail. Motherhood is a topic we return to again and again as she thinks about Perfidia and the predicament she faced, whether to keep fighting or stay with her family. “It will never be a moment of judgment, because a lot of her mistakes have come from her being in survival mode dealing with postpartum depression and the title of being a strong woman—a strong Black woman,” says Taylor, who moves in the next breath to speaking about herself. “We don’t get the same amount of compassion as everybody else. We don’t get the same amount of grace as everybody else. Everybody just assumes we’re okay.”

Taylor sympathizes with her character: “I think with Perfidia, you see the results of people overlooking postpartum depression. You see how that makes her react. And you see this woman that still wants to shoot guns and still wants to be a revolutionary and she wants all of the things.”

At lunch, she recalls a scene in which Bob, DiCaprio’s character, could have offered more support. “He had the opportunity to step in, and he shied away from that. And I feel like that was also a big sign of like, hear me the first time, see me the first time. Like, believe me the first time. And I think a part of it is people not hearing the cries for help.”

Perfidia doesn’t want to give up the life she’s been living after having Charlene, played in her teenage years by Chase Infiniti. She doesn’t want to slow down.

I had to point out the irony to a woman who has come out of retirement from music and is starring alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest names this year. “I know, right? The pot calling the kettle,” Taylor says, covering her mouth as she laughs.

Since its release, much has been written about the politics of One Battle After Another and what, if anything, the film is trying to say with the fetishization of Perfidia Beverly Hills. She’s become a fixation for Penn’s Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, a corrupt ultraconservative white man in power who presents as basically a white nationalist but in private has an obsession with Black women. What to make of her hypersexualized role and the racial dynamics at play? Taylor tiptoes around the topic a bit, careful to not overgeneralize. “I think we don’t enjoy seeing the harsh reality, but this is what’s happening,” she says, avoiding getting too specific about what exactly is happening.

“Another person interviewed me and mentioned something about Perfidia and how people felt like she was overly horny. And I’m like, do you realize the first thing we see of Perfidia is her having a gun to a guy’s head and he calls her sweet thing?” she says with a bit of frustration. “Are you—are we watching the same film?” Taylor seems to see her One Battle After Another character as using her sexuality to her advantage rather than getting taken advantage of. Penn’s Lockjaw ultimately falls into her ploy, finding himself submissive to her sexuality. “Perfidia kind of dived into the, ‘Oh, you think I’m hot? All right, bet. Cool if I get to still do what I’m doing, all I gotta do is show you a little titty or something.’ ”

Taylor’s own physicality is hard to ignore, especially in her presence. Her striking cheekbones and enviable abs ignited her first bout of viral media early in her career, particularly after her 2016 star turn in West’s Flashdance-inspired “Fade” music video. (Taylor herself has directed dozens of works, mostly music videos.) Set in a gym, we saw Taylor the dancer, Taylor the body, and, for basically everyone watching, Taylor the star.

“It got to a point where it was just like, I didn’t wanna be everywhere. I’m just like, the hot Black girl: ‘Oh, fucking body’s sick, she’s so fucking hot.’ It’s just like, thank you—but I wanna do this, this, this, that, and the third,” she says. She points to the outfit she’s wearing at the restaurant: a Sacai jacket with Comme des Garçons harem pants (along with a Maison Mihara Yasuhiro T-shirt, Dries Van Noten boots, and a Roc Nation Yankee edition hat) topped with eye-popping gold jewelry from Schiaparelli, including armbands that she fiddles with throughout the meal and rings that she removes to better enjoy her wings. It’s sexy, easy, and strategic. She’s covered up, because “there’s other things I want to do,” she says. “I don’t want to be stuck in that.”

Taylor wasn’t surprised I wanted to talk about “Fade.” Eli Russell Linnetz, who directed the video, describes her as a force and working with her like “magic unfolding onscreen.” Some famous people, he explains, are “like a nitrous gas that just cannot be contained. They will always find a way to outdo you or outsmart you.” He remembers his reaction: “Wow, this is like discovering a rare gemstone or something. There’s something I have never seen before and I haven’t seen since.” It was a moment where her star turned, but she also feels so far beyond that now. “It’s like, as iconic as ‘Fade’ was, the newer generation don’t even know me from ‘Fade,’ ” she says. “Even in this acting space, a lot of people don’t even know that I’m a full-blown singer. I like that.”

I was curious how her friendship with West has evolved, particularly as she stars alongside Kardashian in All’s Fair. She has worked with West on various musical projects throughout the years, and she likens their bond to family. When asked about their relationship now, after the antisemitic rants and run for president, she says: “I don’t have to agree with everything that he do or say, but I’m not going to, like, abandon him and be like, ‘Yeah, eff that motherfucker,’ ” she says. “My brothers do shit that I don’t agree with…. I don’t get into none of that.”

Taylor has developed a measured, if tempered, demeanor. Even when discussing somewhat uncomfortable topics, she keeps a hushed tone and continues eating. “If you want a real answer, you ask me. So if he asks me something, he knows he’s gonna get a real answer.” She continues on, speaking more philosophically about how she balances her authenticity and loyalties with the high-wire demands of fame. “I do my shit behind the scenes and do what I need to do to help,” she says. “I’m in my business and I drink my water.”

Last year, that business also meant a return to music. In August 2025, Taylor released Escape Room, which earned her her first Grammy nomination, for best R&B album. Between interludes from a slew of famous friends—including Henson, Nash Betts, Issa Rae, and Jodie Turner-Smith— Taylor works through heartbreak in the wake from her divorce from former NBA player Iman Shumpert, to whom she was married from 2016 until 2023. When we spoke in October, Taylor admitted that their relationship still influences how she thinks about future romantic partnerships. “Divorce, to me, is you’re grieving the death of a living being,” she says. “I think once children are involved, you understand the importance of really still having to show up for each other. At least for the next 18 years, and being the best co-parents that we can be.” But she maintains that she doesn’t “want people to start feeling scared of marriage, because marriage is a beautiful thing.”

For “Escape Room,” she also released a “visual album” — a short film starring Lakeith Stanfield and Aaron Pierre, who she announced that she was dating in June on Instagram. The pair were first spotted together last February at the Fifteen Percent Pledge Gala, seven months after she finalized her divorce. “I think we’re both working our asses off and doing what we gotta do, and that’s amazing,” she told me when we met. But in late December, rumors that she had split with Pierre surfaced in tabloids. Taylor and Pierre have not commented publicly on their relationship status, but Taylor has an enduringly optimistic view on love and commitment. “One thing I don’t do is rewrite history,” she told me, speaking at the time about Shumpert, but in ways that remain relevant in the face of a fresh breakup. “When I love, my love is real. So whatever you’ve seen was a real display of love until there was no more. And that’s okay.”

Taylor is learning a lot from this whirlwind year about the craft of acting onscreen and the performances that a press tour necessitates off-screen. She’s spent a lot of time with her costars on set and in interviews and has noticed some differences working with some of Hollywood’s legendary men versus the women of All’s Fair.

“It’s always been like, big brother energy. Like they are not playing about me or any of the women on set. So that’s always fun. But that energy is also so protective: ‘Wait, no, no. Make sure you get her this. No, no, don’t let her walk in that puddle.’ It’s like, I got this, big bro. Love you. Thank you,” she says, both appreciating and bristling against that sort of protection.

“When you’re on set with all girls, you have the group chat, and it’s like, chatty, and we’re just having a ball, and it was like, ‘Oh my God, does anybody have this? Oh my God, Kim, I need you to call over to Skims. I need a bra ASAP.’ Our group chat is just so lit. And it’s a sisterhood. You get to share more, whereas with your brothers, it’s just like, Why tell my brother right now what I am going through? They’re gonna be like, ‘Who did it, where they at?’”

She says the cast of All’s Fair really bonded. “We actually really like each other. Some people can’t wait to get off work. Like, we get to work and be like, Oh, we’re done already? All right, well, let’s go to the house and have a slumber party.” Her All’s Fair costar Nash-Betts describes Taylor as serious about her craft but quite the jokester off set. “I did receive a prank phone call from her once that had me laughing my ass off.”

“She has such a delightful sense of play and lighthearted spirit, and it’s like, not lost on her, how lucky we all are to get to do what we do and to actually get to do it, how rare that is,” Paulson says. “There’s plenty of room for delight and fun and surprise, which is not always the case when you’re working with actors.”

Working with DiCaprio, Penn, and director Paul Thomas Anderson might intimidate less experienced actors. Not Taylor. “No, no, no,” she says. “I’m more honored. I’m like, in awe. Maybe my heart skipped a few beats, because I just keep thinking about where I used to be versus where I am now. I’m to be able to hold my own up against all these heavyweights and be able to share the same space as them,” she says. “I’m blessed in abundance.” On Sunday, Taylor won the Golden Globe for best supporting actress, and has also been nominated for an Actor Award (formerly known as a Screen Actors Guild Award) for the same category. The much-anticipated Oscar nominations, where One Battle After Another is considered a contender and Taylor would be a first-time nominee, will be announced later this month.

“What’s obvious about Teyana is what’s great: her fire, spirit, and swagger,” Anderson says. “What’s less obvious is what makes her special: She’s a softy, vulnerable and extremely intelligent. Do not be fooled by her prowess; she’s a quiet threat more than a noisemaker.”

“She has a short attention span which is good—it forces you to work fast and always keep her busy,” he writes via email. “She’s anxious to mix it up and try different approaches to a scene—she has a filmmaker’s intuition of what can work for the camera. Yes, she’s fun, but she’s no joke.”

Her costars in The Rip, Taylor’s next project, speak just as fondly of her. “She is literally incapable of striking a false note. Everything she did made a scene better and more grounded,” Damon says of acting alongside her in the film where she, Damon, and Affleck play cops who discover millions of dollars in cash during a raid. “Every ad-lib worked. Every take was a little different, but I believed all of them. It’s exhilarating working with someone like that.”

Affleck describes her performance as “a class in authenticity and naturalism. Nothing she says sounds like a line from a movie. She’s funny and has the same kind of confidence her character exudes—which gives you the sense that she can thrive in almost any circumstance or among any group of people.”

In what one has to imagine is her very little free time, Taylor has taken on another role: She’s currently enrolled in the Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. The pivot has been a bit of an adjustment: “I’m actually getting more and more comfortable with cooking with physical onions,” she says. “And I know it may sound stupid and small, but that’s a big thing. I’m a big flavor girl, I’m not a texture girl,” she says. “Besides onions, I have to open my palate to things I’ve never even opened my mouth for.” One day she hopes to open her own restaurant.

When we meet in November, they’re on to breakfast, which she thought would be a breeze. “Baby, that breakfast was whooping me.”