NET-A-PORTER – If Lily James could play any role from cinematic history, what would it be? “That’s a tough question,” says the actress, who you’ll probably recognize as Rose in Downton Abbey and Disney’s princess Cinderella. She wrinkles her nose in concentration. “I was watching The People vs. Larry Flynt last night,” she offers finally, referring to the ’90s biopic of the American porn baron, starring Woody Harrelson as Flynt and Courtney Love as his stripper girlfriend, Althea Leasure. “Courtney Love in that,” she drops her voice to a whisper. “Oh, God, incredible. It would be good to go that far, to go into a space and be with a director and a group of people and just let everything go. That would be cool.”

This is an interesting moment for James. After a deftly timed flirtation with darker, edgier subject matter in last year’s Baby Driver, plus an eye-catching appearance as Churchill’s secretary in Darkest Hour, the 29-year-old actress is raising her game with three female-led features that promise to position her as a British leading lady with international clout. First up is the long-awaited film adaptation of beloved historical novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, directed by Mike Newell. Later this month there’s Little Woods, an indie gem developed by its 28-year-old director Nia DaCosta in a Sundance incubator; and finally July’s sun-drenched, all-singing, all-dancing sequel Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again, in which James plays Donna (aka Meryl Streep’s younger self).

It is the morning after the Oscars, and James and I are meeting at a north London cafe close to the actress’s home. Ever-so-slightly disheveled, she could be any cute London girl – dressed in reworked vintage jeans (“From Austin”), a huge overcoat, Burberry plaid scarf and sloppy sweater sourced from a local boutique – if it weren’t for the Julia Roberts-level mega-wattage of her beauty, which she only really switches on once we’re ensconced at our table and sipping coffee. After months of Mamma Mia!-ing (“So intense, because I had to sing, I had to dance… and I felt kind of like I was going to screw it up”), she is recovering. “Seeing friends that I haven’t seen in so long and just not feeling guilty about being able to drink wine every day. I can eat what I want and not go to the gym and just be really lazy.” Ergo, she spent Oscars night in bed (asleep), waking to excited text messages from her actor beau Matt Smith (currently out in Los Angeles) about Gary Oldman’s Darkest Hour win. Since then, she’s mostly been watching Frances McDormand’s acceptance speech: “So many times. Like on repeat! I met her at the BAFTAs and she is just a complete rock star. She’s just so completely herself.”

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With her all-singing, all-dancing role in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Lily James is clearly well-versed in ABBA. But which other artists does she listen to when she’s at home? Press play to watch her wax lyrical about her favorite musical memories in an exclusive behind-the-scenes video

THE TELEGRAPH – The day before we meet, Lily James went to a yoga class for the first time in many years.

‘I was lying on my back and they were like, “Do a crab,”’ says Lily. ‘And I was like, “Sure…”’ she mimes an awkward attempt at the pose, pushing her chest out, arms flailing hopelessly to the side. ‘And I suddenly realised that I can’t just… you know, I can’t do a crab any more!’

She used to do yoga regularly, but the habit fell by the wayside. Well, I say, you’ve been otherwise occupied. She nods. ‘I have.’

At 29, Lily already has the sort of CV many older actresses can only dream of. She landed her first role in the BBC adaptation of Just William straight after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama eight years ago. By 2015, Lily was playing the lead in Disney’s live-action retelling of Cinderella.

The next year, she was Natasha in the BBC’s critically acclaimed War and Peace. In 2017, she put on a faultless American accent to star as diner waitress Deborah in the Edgar Wright-directed Baby Driver, and took on the role of Winston Churchill’s secretary in Darkest Hour, the film that won Gary Oldman a Best Actor Oscar.

And now her latest role sees Lily back in 1940s tailoring, playing Juliet Ashton, a writer emotionally scarred by the Second World War, in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Adapted from the bestselling novel of the same title, it is directed by Mike Newell (of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame).

Lily’s 20s, she says, have been ‘mad. I’ve just been going and going and going.’ Along the way, she’s also had to contend with the endless interest in her relationship with the actor Matt Smith, 35, who she has been dating for four years, since they met on the set of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. There were rumours of a romance for months, but Lily stuck firmly to the ‘just good friends’ line until they finally made it public with a red-carpet appearance at the Cinderella premiere in February 2015.

HARPER’S BAZAAR UK – There is something about Lily James’ enchanting beauty that makes her the perfect heroine of period drama – but it’s her vivacious spirit, warmth and intelligence that bring these roles to life for a modern audience. She talks to Sophie Elmhirst about being inspired by her grandmother’s life in occupied France in World War II, the importance of having more female directors in Hollywood, and the positive changes already underway.

There’s a story that Lily James has heard her French grandmother tell over the years. In World War II, James’ grandmother was a child, living in the French countryside. The Nazis took over the house during the occupation and the family were forced to flee to Paris in convoy with the French army. When they finally returned after the war, they found their home destroyed, the cellars flooded, a fur coat floating on the water. ‘When I talk to her,’ says James now, in amazement, ‘I think of how their lives were completely turned upside-down, the horror of it all, and how she carried on and could be here sitting having a cup of tea with her granddaughter.’

There’s something about that fur coat: how a detail can summon an image, an insignificant moment in an epic chronology of destruction that for some reason lingers. Lily James and I are sitting in a Highgate café talking about World War II because she is, once again, starring in a film from that time, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, adapted from the 2008 book of the same title, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. (In fact she’s in two, released in quick succession: the other is Darkest Hour, in which she stars as Winston Churchill’s secretary.)

VANITY FAIR – With each new role James takes, she is looking to test her acting abilities. She’ll next play Winston Churchill’s secretary in Darkest Hour before starring in the upcoming Mamma Mia! sequel.

AGE: 28.

PROVENANCE: London.

ROLE MODEL: “My grandmother Helen Horton was an actress; I looked up to her in every way.”

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS: After graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, James brought mischief to the manor-born as Lady Rose, on Downton Abbey. “Being cast was life-altering. We were like a family, and it was as good as it looked.”

FULL TANK: Since then, she’s played Cinderella for Disney, Shakespeare’s Juliet onstage for Kenneth Branagh, and an American waitress, Debora, for Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. “I was ready to break loose of the mold and try something different.”

WAR ROOM: This holiday season, in Darkest Hour, Joe Wright’s W.W. II biopic, James stars as Elizabeth Layton, the secretary to Winston Churchill, played by Gary Oldman. “I read her book and it was endlessly fascinating hearing about Churchill’s quirks and their relationship.” As for working with Oldman? “I’ve only met Gary out of costume a handful of times. It’s awe-inspiring how he transforms as an actor—it took my breath away.”

DANCING QUEEN: This summer, in the sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, she’ll share a role with Meryl Streep, singing the part of Donna during her early years. “There’s no cynicism; it’s all joy. You can’t help but be completely drawn in and dance like a lunatic!”

Lily is featured in the newest issue of Grazia Italia (September 07) with a brand new interview and some unseen outtakes from the Baby Driver promotional photoshoot. The scans, outtakes and a new promotional photo from her campaign My Burberry Blush have now been added to the gallery. Enjoy!

Lily talks everything ‘Baby Driver’ and more with W magazine in a new interview and photoshoot. Head over to our gallery for high quality outtakes and don’t forget to read the full article below. Enjoy!

W MAGAZINE – Lily James is really, really excited to breathe.

Since her breakout role as Lady Rose MacClare on Downton Abbey in 2012, the 28-year-old English actress has starred almost exclusively in a slew of high-profile period pieces—read: corset-confining—including 2015’s live-action Cinderella and BBC’s War & Peace. But with her latest role in Edgar Wright’s much buzzed-about film Baby Driver, James has finally arrived in the modern age.

“It was heaven,” James told me last week. “That waitress outfit was pretty tight, but I would breathe, which was a change. And it was great. I really wanted to do something contemporary, which felt like an escape. It was breath of fresh air to get into 2017.”

The highly stylized film, which focuses on a getaway driver named Baby, played by Ansel Elgort, in the midst of his final heist, is in fact just that—a breath of fresh air. “In a world of a lot of franchises and remakes, it’s an original story and the characters are really unique; I feel kind of bowled over by Edgar and the movie,” James said. “When I saw the finished movie with the cast, I was like, ‘This movie is so cool, I can’t believe I’m in it.’ It feels really iconic and I think it could be a real cult classic, but it’s mainstream enough that anyone and everyone can enjoy it. It’s got romance and action and comedy—it’s kind of genre-less.”

In the film, which is in theaters on Wednesday, James played Deborah, a Southern waitress whom Elgort’s character quickly falls for, prompting him to leave a life of crime. “She’s a total dreamer,” the actress said of her Deborah. “She’s lonely, and yet she’s optimistic. She kind of rattles around in this dead-end diner job with only truck drivers to talk to. You get the feeling that she’s a bit of a drifter and doesn’t know what she wants or what she’s about, and then this guy walks in and she kind of finds a purpose. She’s just a really genuine person.”

The role also saw the Brit ditch her usual posh lilt (see: period pieces) in favor of a twangy Southern accent. “I really worked on it,” said James. “I had this amazing voice coach, and I really focused on the character because being American isn’t just the voice. We really spent ages on it. Half of my family is American, so I do feel like I have American blood. But I’m still working on it.”

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Lily gave an interview for The Times magazine and it’s definitely a must-read. I thought it was impossible to be more admirative that I already was but I was clearly wrong as she proves once again how down-to-earth and absolutely adorable she is. It also means new photoshoot and an outtakes in high quality can now be found in our gallery as well as the cover. Enjoy!

THE TIMES – Is Lily James a bit of a diva? With a big-bucks action blockbuster coming up, three series of Downton Abbey, the starring role as a Disney princess, not to mention dating Matt Smith, all by the age of 28, she might be entitled to a bit of hair toss and foot stamp.

And given the effort it’s taken to get to the point that I am sitting opposite her (Lily can do Wednesday. No wait, Thursday. Morning. No, afternoon. Venue: a pub in Kentish Town. Scratch that, a café in Mayfair), I was prepared for this possibility. This is an actress, after all, whose star is hugely in the ascendant – a scriptwriter friend in the industry says he can’t move for scripts touting her as their most desired lead.

So I’m surprised to find her alone, twisting her hands, dark eyes surfing the room, cheeks blotching almost like a shy child. It’s as if she’s up for the magistrate. Even the way she talks is coy. As she echoes my request for a coffee, she admits she’s very nervous. “Is it obvious?” It is.

“I am a nervous person. I go red at anything, the drop of a hat. I also get a rash, on my neck and chest,” she says.

This is borne out early on when I ask her about her boyfriend, Matt Smith (former Doctor Who star and a heart-throb to billions of young girls, including my own) and she glows in abashed agony.

Later she apologises for this, and then sort of apologises for apologising, saying that she needs to learn to be more assertive and to stop apologising. So not at all a diva. This is all charming in a delightful café filled with grannies and small dogs behind the Royal Academy, but surely a little fragile for the hard-arsed, sharp-elbowed world of Hollywood?

James is aware of this. She says Alli Shearmur, one of the producers of Cinderella, tried to coach her to be more forceful. “Alli is amazing, a force of nature and she’s only 5ft 2in.” Apparently there are three golden rules. “Never apologise. Never repeat yourself.” She forgets the last. “Oh yes – and don’t explain yourself.”

“It’s so boring to apologise all the time, isn’t it? I have to slap myself out of it.”

It’s also really important to learn how to say no, she adds. “When someone says, ‘Can you stay late tonight and do an extra meeting?’, you say, ‘No,’ and leave it at that.”

Would she be tempted to add an apology? She smiles. “Desperate.”

For interviews, her “trick” to overcome anxiety is a “glass of wine” (perhaps the reason for the initial suggestion of a pub), but she doesn’t “hate” the process exactly, just feels that, “It’s hard to talk for ages about yourself. A lot of actors are like that, aren’t they?” she asks, hopeful. If only.

There’s no arrogance or vanity or cynicism about her. It’s a refreshing change from the posturing and potty-mouthed excess of so many who catch their first snort of power.

I can’t imagine her throwing a tantrum or being rude, or even drunk (although she assures me this is the only way she can sleep through the noise in a tepee at Glastonbury).

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Lily and the cast/director of ‘Baby Driver’ posed for a beautiful portrait session before the London premiere on June 21, 2017. High quality pictures have been added to our gallery, make sure to check them all!