‘Everybody Told Me It Was Dumb’ Teyana Taylor On Moving From Music to Movies
Written by Tariq on February 27, 2026
In a new interview with Time for the magazine’s Women of the Year profiles, Teyana Taylor reflected on a time when her talents were as widely praised as they are now. 35-year-old multi-hyphenate star was Kanye West‘s “Fade” video, which premiered at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards, and previously scoring a 2014 hit with “Maybe,” the One Battle After Another star admitted that by 2020 she was ready to leave the music industry, where she didn’t feel supported. “Everybody told me it was dumb,” Taylor told Time. “And I was like, ‘No, I am going to be a great actress. One day, I am going to be a great director.’ ”
Taylor proved critics wrong, booking roles in Coming 2 America, A Thousand and One and White Men Can’t Jump. In 2025, she earned praise for her performance as Perfidia Beverly Hills in One Battle After Another, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. It’s Taylor’s first Oscar nod. The Paul Thomas Anderson-directed movie also stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Chase Infiniti and Regina Hall. It earned 12 other nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Anderson and Best Actor for DiCaprio.
Source: People
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