44 Time March 1/March 8, 2021
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ANYATAYLOR-JOY24 • Screen queenBY GARRY KASPAROVAnya Taylor-Joy explodes
the caricature of the
misanthrope chess player
into a million artfully
placed pieces in Netflix’s
hit miniseries The Queen’s
Gambit, bringing novelist
Walter Tevis’ chess prodigy
Beth Harmon to full,
complicated life. She did it
while embracing the game
of chess itself, with all of
its difficulty and tension.
She learned to move the
pieces and her body the
way a professional player
does, something akin to
learning a new language. As
Beth, Taylor-Joy is a hyper-
competitive chess genius
whose dedication to the
game makes the audience
fall in love with it too. It
wouldn’t surprise me if her
stellar portrayal does more
to promote chess worldwide
than all the real-world
champions. Anyone who can
do that can do anything.Kasparov, a former world
chess champion, was a
consultant on The Queen’s
GambitNyjah
Huston
26 • Skateboarding
sensation
BY TONY HAWK
Nyjah Huston has shown that
the highly technical skateboard-
ing people experience in video
games can be done in real life.
His confidence and consistency
have made once-in-a-thousand-
type tricks a reality—for example,
the Caballerial to noseblunt slide
to fakie that sent him backward
down a steep ledge in San
Francisco, winning him his 13th
X Games gold in 2020. He has
the technical precision of the
greatest athletes, in any sport—
and I have no doubt that when
skateboarding makes its Olympic
debut in Tokyo this summer, he’ll
be recognized as a top talent.
There’s still an antiquated
view of skateboarding out
there, that it’s a slacker white
kid’s sport for outcasts. But
the sport has long transcended
that stereotype. Once they see
Nyjah perform, people around
the world will have a deeper
appreciation for the kids they see
in skate parks, falling off of ramps
and rails over and over and over.
They’ll now know what those kids
are striving for, what those kids
can be. Thanks to Nyjah, they’ll
know what’s possible.
Hawk is a professional
skateboarder