Anya Taylor-Joy Says Husband Malcolm McRae "Accidentally" Proposed on the Iconic 'Forrest Gump' Bench

"He's a boy from Alabama and I'm a blonde."

Anya Taylor-Joy and Malcolm McRae attend a gala performance of "Cabaret At The Kit Kat Club" featuring new cast members on March 28, 2024 in London, England.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Anya Taylor-Joy is giving fans some insight into how her husband Malcolm McRae proposed.

In a recent clip of an interview with the Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga star posted on Instagram by Letterboxd, Taylor-Joy spilled the beans on the not-so-intentional location where her now-husband McRae decided to propose.

“My husband accidentally proposed to mean the Forrest Gump bench in Savannah," the actress told her recent co-star and Marvel superhero Chris Hemsworth. "Complete accident, and he’s a boy from Alabama and I’m a blonde—so it just, it just happened."

Despite the location of the proposal being an accident, it was nevertheless extremely special to the actress, who went on to admit that when she hears "that music" from the iconic 1994 film she cries "like a baby."

"Thinking about Anya Taylor-Joy’s wedding proposal today," Letterboxd captioned the post featuring a snipped of the interview.

Taylor-Joy announced she married the American musician in a touching Instagram post on April Fool's, confirming the pair actually got low-key hitched two years prior in a secret ceremony.

"Two years ago, on April Fools, I secretly married my best friend in New Orleans. The magic of that day is ingrained in every cell of my being, forever," the star captioned the Instagram post, which featured candid photos of her goth-inspired wedding ceremony. "Happy second (first) anniversary my love…you’re the coolest."

The secret wedding was attended by just two of Taylor-Joy and her groom's friends—model and actress Cara Delevingne and photographer Sebastián Faena.

Later, on April 9 while attending CinemaCon at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, the actress told Entertainment Tonight that her and her now-husband “did our research” in order to pull off the private ceremony in New Orleans.

“We were pretty spy-orientated," she told the publication. "At the end of the day, it was about the two of us and so we ran away with our two best friends and had the most magical day possible."

Danielle Campoamor
Weekend Editor

Danielle Campoamor is Marie Claire's weekend editor covering all things news, celebrity, politics, culture, live events, and more. In addition, she is an award-winning freelance writer and former NBC journalist with over a decade of digital media experience covering mental health, reproductive justice, abortion access, maternal mortality, gun violence, climate change, politics, celebrity news, culture, online trends, wellness, gender-based violence and other feminist issues. You can find her work in The New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, New York Magazine, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, TODAY, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, InStyle, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Glamour, The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Prism, Newsweek, Slate, HuffPost and more. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and their two feral sons. When she is not writing, editing or doom scrolling she enjoys reading, cooking, debating current events and politics, traveling to Seattle to see her dear friends and losing Pokémon battles against her ruthless offspring. You can find her on X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook and all the places.

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