‘Lucky’ Is About to Turn Anya Taylor-Joy Into TV’s Next Great Con Artist

Anya Taylor-Joy has spent the last few years building one of the most eclectic resumes in Hollywood, jumping between prestige limited series, blockbuster franchises, and genre curiosities without ever settling into one lane for too long. Her next stop takes her back to television in a starring role that feels tailor-made for her particular brand of controlled chaos.

That project is ‘Lucky,’ a crime thriller adapted from Marissa Stapley’s bestselling novel of the same name, and it arrives with one of the most stacked casts of the summer surrounding her. Apple has been building buzz around the series for months, and this week brought the news everyone has been waiting for.

The first two episodes of ‘Lucky’ officially arrive on Apple TV this Wednesday, July 15, kicking off a seven-episode run with new installments dropping weekly through the finale on August 19. Taylor-Joy stars as the title character, a con artist whose life spirals out of control after a multimillion-dollar heist goes sideways, forcing her to outrun both the FBI and a ruthless crime boss.

Joining her is Annette Bening as Priscilla, the dangerous mob leader with deep ties to Lucky’s past, while Timothy Olyphant plays John Armstrong, Lucky’s father and the man who raised her inside a life of crime. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor rounds out the core cast as Agent Billie Rand, the federal agent tasked with tracking Lucky down, with Drew Starkey playing her husband Cary and Clifton Collins Jr. and William Fichtner filling out recurring roles.

The series comes from creator Jonathan Tropper, who serves as co-showrunner alongside Cassie Pappas, with Reese Witherspoon executive producing through her Hello Sunshine banner. Taylor-Joy herself takes on an executive producer credit through her own production company, LadyKiller, giving her a hand in shaping the story well beyond just her performance in front of the camera.

Getting that performance right clearly took some real physical commitment. Taylor-Joy described shooting through the night at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for the production, explaining in comments shared with Brit and Co that she wanted Lucky to feel like she was constantly scraping by rather than moving through the story like some kind of superhero.

That grounded, exhausting energy shows up right in the show’s marketing, with the trailer following Lucky as she sprints through a casino with FBI agents closing in, clutching a pile of cash while frantically searching for her missing husband. A tense exchange between Bening’s Priscilla and Taylor-Joy’s Lucky in that same trailer makes clear just how personal and dangerous their history together really is.

For Taylor-Joy, ‘Lucky’ marks her first leading television role since ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ turned her into a household name back in 2020, and her first series overall since ‘Peaky Blinders’ wrapped in 2022. It also reunites her with Apple TV following her 2025 film ‘The Gorge,’ giving the streamer another marquee vehicle built around her specific star power.

The timing lines up well for Olyphant, too, who already has one Apple TV series on his plate this year following ‘Stick,’ which has been renewed for a second season even though his involvement in that follow-up has not yet been confirmed. Between the two of them, ‘Lucky’ arrives carrying more than enough star power to make it one of the more closely watched debuts of the summer streaming calendar.

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