DAILY MAIL – Talking to Lily James is a bit like being with a toddler in a toy shop. She’s so excited she can barely keep still in her chair. Her hands are constantly waving up in the air and her toothy grin’s almost as wide as her face. But who can blame her? Joining the cast of Downton Abbey two years ago as the rebellious Lady Rose has catapulted her straight onto the A-list.

She’s just finished making her first Disney film – as Cinderella in a Kenneth Branagh production of the fairy tale no less – and from there she’ll be fighting zombies as Elizabeth Bennet in a very modern version of Pride And Prejudice before taking one of the leads, Natasha Rostova, in the BBC’s new costume drama mini-series War And Peace.

Oh, and she’s dating former Doctor Who star Matt Smith to boot. ‘Every girl wants to be a princess but the reality of playing a Disney one is, “OH MY GOD!”‘ she practically screeches.

‘I’m having so many dream-come-true moments I can’t even count them. Getting Downton was one of them. I’d watched the show from the start and loved it so I couldn’t believe it when I got the job. Now to play a Disney princess is just silly really. It’s hard to comprehend. I don’t want to be one of those actors who can’t admit it’s exciting.’

Downton creator Julian Fellowes has said he’s going to have to write the next series of Downton around Lily’s other commitments, but unlike other former cast members Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay who left the show after Hollywood photographs: alisa connan/camera press, nick briggs, wireimage beckoned, he won’t have to kill her off. ‘I don’t want to leave; I’ll stay forever if I can,’ she insists. ‘I love it, my mum loves it and my gran loves it. That’s part of the enjoyment of it for me, knowing how much my family enjoy seeing me in it. It feels very special.’

This series is Lily’s second full one as a Downton regular after being introduced as the Dowager’s great niece at the end of series three. Instantly replacing Jessica Brown Findlay’s Lady Sybil (who died in childbirth) as the headstrong beauty, Lady Rose seemed to get all the key storylines from the start.

When we first met her she was going to nightclubs and kissing married men. The horror! But when the 2012 Downton Christmas special decamped to Rose’s family’s Highlands castle we got a clue as to why she was so badly behaved; her parents seemed to hate each other and her mother seemed totally uninterested in the impact that was having on their vulnerable teenage daughter.

In the last series she got even wilder when she came to stay at Downton while her parents were in India; pretending to be a servant after meeting a local boy and then falling for a black jazz musician. It prompted Downton fan Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, to tease Lily with ‘Oh naughty you’ when they first met shortly after the episode aired.

‘She loves Downton,’ giggles Lily. But by the end of last year, in a Christmas episode that centred on her coming out debutante ball, she appeared to be maturing and even managed to help save the Prince of Wales’s reputation. So far in this series, Rose has appeared to be on her best behaviour and last week we saw her more caring side as she started doing some charity work to help refugees from the Russian Revolution.

Tomorrow we’ll see a more vulnerable side to Rose with the return of her father from India. ‘She’s grown up a bit since the last series,’ says Lily.

‘She’s more aware of the world around her and more focused. She’s less of a party girl. She’s developed in a totally different way and it’s quite exciting. I think she feels safe at Downton, which is a feeling she didn’t have before. She’s always felt quite unstable and unloved. There’s stuff going on with my screen family this series too.
‘My father, the Marquess of Flintshire [played by Peter Egan], is back in my life. Peter’s a dream to work with. We had some really touching scenes together, both of us getting very teary. Rose isn’t really looking for love this year – but that doesn’t mean it won’t come along. Life’s a bit like that, isn’t it? Once you stop looking, something interesting appears.’

Is that what happened with her and Matt?, I wonder. ‘No comment!’ she giggles again, this time a little nervously. The pair have been dating since they met at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year but have a pact not to talk about each other.

Things appear to be serious though, as they were pictured househunting together in London’s fashionable Primrose Hill last month. Lily appears to have had a gilded rise to the top but there’s been heartache too. Born Lily Thomson in Surrey, acting ability runs in the family. Her Americanborn paternal grandmother Helen Horton, who died in 2009, was an actress who appea red i n several films and TV shows, ranging from a part in Superman III to regular appearances in The Benny Hill Show.

She was also the voice of Mother, the ship computer in Ridley Scott’s Alien. Her father James Thomson was a struggling actor and musician who was once in a band with Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s star Anthony Head and died in 2008, just before Lily started at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She says studying helped her through her grief. ‘Drama school was a lifeline for me, it saved me. I found it very nurturing – I just clung on.’

When she started getting work she changed her surname to James as a tribute to her father. At present she still lives in Hackney, east London, with friends but remains close to her mother and two brothers. She says they help keep her feet on the ground.

‘Last Christmas, before the Downton special, I got a bit nervous about it and ended up having a big argument with my older brother about whether we should watch it in high-definition,’ she recalls. ‘You know what Christmas arguments are like; it got a bit nasty. I’m anti-HD because the show is shot so beautifully I think it ruins the magic, but my brother told me I was talking rubbish and we watched it his way.’

Her Downton family have become close friends too, in particular Laura Carmichael and Michelle Dockery, who play Lady Edith and Lady Mary. ‘They’re like the sisters I never had. They’ve been through it all so they’re full of advice. I went to Glastonbury with Laura – we went a bit posh in a Winnebago. We were all supposed to go but then Michelle had a meeting and couldn’t come. It was crazy though, grooving around in the rain.’

Being in Downton has opened a whole new world for her; the cast regularly get together for charity functions which sometimes involve a drink at London’s trendy Groucho Club when they’re finished. And she got to meet Prince William at a fashion charity event at Windsor Castle she attended with Michelle.

‘He’s a charmer and he said he watches the show, which I’m sure he does,’ she says. ‘It was an amazing night and surreal to be in those places.’ Meanwhile Sophie McShera, who plays kitchen maid Daisy on the show, is playing one of her ugly sisters in Cinderella, a live-action remake of the Disney classic.

For much of the film the tables are turned; Lily is downstairs sleeping in the cinders while Sophie got more costume changes in six months as the haughty stepsister than she’s had in four years on Downton. ‘I think if Rose had been a maid she would have been a lot happier,’ says Lily. ‘There’s so much more freedom and I like being in rags rather than ballgowns.’ Lily is happiest in jeans and a T-shirt. She’s rarely recognised in the street as her Downton hairdo is so different to her real one and she’s a natural brunette.

‘The costumes in Downton tend to make us look older than we look in real life too,’ she adds. ‘I adore the costumes, but it would be nice to wear something a bit more modern. In Cinderella I was wearing a corset so tight I could barely eat while in Downton I have to wear a bra that flattens my chest and really hurts. I’m dying to get back to the theatre and do something modern,’ she sighs.

If only she can find time in that busy diary of hers.

PREVIOUS POST
NEXT POST

Comments are closed.