Lily is one of the 15 Faces of 2015 of Interview magazine and here is her interview with new outtakes from this photoshoot.
In the place of end-of-year lists and resolutions, we’ve rounded up 15 acts worth getting to know for 2015. We’ll be posting a new interview a day between now and January, starting with 2015’s leading lady Lily James.
Lily James’ upcoming filmography is more than impressive; it’s career-defining. In March, the 25-year-old British actress will star in Disney’s color-saturated, live action revamp of Cinderella opposite Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Richard Madden, and Stellan Skarsgård. Then there’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s unconventional take on Jane Austen’s classic novel, in which she’ll play Elizabeth Bennet, with Douglas Booth as Bingley, Jack Huston as Wickham, Matt Smith as Collins, Bella Heathcote as Jane, and Sam Riley as Darcy. She’s also completed a still-untitled-film written by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Peaky Blinders), directed by John Wells (August: Osage County), and co-starring Jamie Dornan and Bradley Cooper. Finally, there is a rather potent rumor that she’ll be playing Natasha Rostova in a BBC and Weinstein Company-produced miniseries of War and Peace. Paul Dano, whom James describes as “completely unbelievable,” is rumored to have the part of Pierre Bezukhov.
Born Lily Thompson in Esher, Surrey, James has been acting professionally since she graduated from London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010. She started in television and theater, playing Nina in The Seagull at Southwark Playhouse, Desdemona in Othello at the Crucible in Sheffield, and, perhaps most famously, Lady Rose, the resident jazz musician-dating bad-girl in the period drama-turned-soap Downton Abbey. She has two brothers: one older, one younger. Her grandmother, who James remembers as “a beautiful, glamorous, wonderful woman,” was the American actress Helen Horton.
AGE: 25
NATIONALITY: BritishINTRODUCTION TO ACTING: It was really the fact that my dad, he did every single accent under the sun and he would read bedtime stories. He read all the Harry Potters up to the last couple of ones—I read them myself. Me and my brother would share the book at the same time, both reading on different pages. [laughs] My dad’s creativity and storytelling—he could sing and play guitar—was kind of my inspiration. We were always playing. I used to go to musicals every birthday—that was my birthday present. We’d go to London, me and my two brothers and mum and dad. I think I saw Mamma Mia about five times. [laughs] I definitely got obsessed at a young age with the theater.
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I have updated the gallery with high quality outtakes from Lily’s photoshoot for InStyle magazine (January 2015).
Studio Photoshoots > Outtakes & Sessions > Session 039
Lily is InStyle’s cover girl for January 2015 and you can read below an excerpt from her interview. You will also find a new photoshoot, now in our gallery! On newsstands on November 4.
Downton Abbey’s Lily James seems to be taking over the world. Not only has she scored the lead role as Cinderella in Disney’s live action film alongside Cate Blanchett, she’s also nabbed the role of Elizabeth Bennet in the long-awaited Pride And Prejudice And Zombies plus she’s been cast as Anastacia by Harvey Weinstein in his adapation of War and Peace. That’s in-between working the red carpet, hanging out on the front row at fashion week and date nights with Matt Smith.
On filming Cinderella…
‘At one point, it all became too much and then Helena Bonham Carter said to me, “have one breakdown a week; it makes people know you’re not a robot and remember that you’re human.”‘On dating Matt Smith…
‘ …in regards to your love life, you’re just entering into a whole of pain if you talk about it. If you’ve never said anything, there are no sound bites to haunt you when you’re crying into a box of Kleenex after it all goes wrong.’On watching Downton Abbey with her family at Christmas time…
‘Downton’s taken over; suddenly rather than playing charades and getting more drunk, we sit and watch me, which is quite bizarre.’
I have updated the gallery with two new photos from the Sunday Times Style magazine (2012).
Lily was interviewed by Grazia magazine. The interview is in french but she talks about her dream to play in a historical drama and how surprised she was when she got her role in ‘Downton Abbey’. ‘Cinderella’ and the support from an amazing cast & crew, her future projects and that she wants to play different roles but also talks about acting is what makes her happy. The article featured a new photoshoot now added in our gallery. Enjoy!
D’où vient-elle ?
Élevée dans une famille à la fibre artistique développée, Lily a toujours chanté, dansé, joué : “Mon père et ma grand-mère étaient acteurs, faisaient de la musique dans un groupe… Enfin, pas ensemble !” Elle s’inscrit donc dans une école d’art dramatique à Londres, dont elle sort en 2010. Deux ans plus tard, elle décroche le Graal : le rôle de l’intrépide Lady Rose MacClare dans Downton Abbey. “Je rêvais de jouer dans un drame historique, je suis tellement anglaise. J’ai auditionné en pensant n’avoir aucune chance. J’en ai renversé ma tasse de café quand on m’a dit que c’était bon !”Où est-elle ?
Dans la cinquième saison de Downtown Abbey qui sera diffusée à la rentrée et, surtout, dans l’adaptation esthétique et forcément lyrique de Cendrillon par Kenneth Branagh, en salle en avril 2015. “C’était un tournage très long, assez éprouvant, et impressionnant, mais j’ai été soutenue par une équipe vraiment incroyable : Stellan Skarsgard, Helena Bonham Carter, Richard Madden et mon idole absolue, Cate Blanchett.”Où va-t-elle ?
Tourner trois films qui impliquent de la cuisine, du mélodramatique british et… des zombies ! “Je suis pour essayer des choses radicalement différentes.”Ce qui la freine ?
Un manque de confiance en elle : “Parfois je ne me sens pas assez belle, ou pas à la hauteur, j’ai vraiment besoin du soutien du réalisateur.”Ce qui la booste ?
Jouer, toujours plus. “Être actrice implique d’autres choses très sympas, mais c’est sur scène ou sur un plateau que je me sens la plus heureuse.”
I tried to translate the article in english, sorry if you see some mistakes. See below:
Read below the full interview of Lily for Town & Country magazine from the Summer 2014 issue. A new outtake has also been added to the gallery.
TOWN & COUNTRY – Thanks to Downton Abbey, Lily James – as Lady Rose – is now a global star. Andrew O’Hagan meets the girl with the world at her feet, and explores how a homegrown drama became an international obsession
Once upon a time in the County of Ayr, a man called Archibald Montgomerie, the 13th Earl of Eglinton, decided to throw a marvellous, romantic pageant, on which he squandered his family’s entire fortune. Over a weekend in August 1839, he put on a tournament that attracted 100,000 people. His estate in Kilwinning was thronged with visitors from all over Britain, coming in carriages, carts, by pony and on foot, the road from Glasgow jammed with people equal in their wish to enjoy the Earl’s historic flight of fancy. Inspired by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, the jousting was to be witnessed by Napoleon III of France, Princess Esterhazy of Hungary, Count Persigny of France, the Earls of Cassillis and Craven, and the Viscount Glenlyon. But the Eglinton Tournament wasn’t just for the upper orders; the majority of spectators were farmers and tradesmen, captivated by the spectacle of mediaeval chivalry and by a firm belief that the aristocracy offered moral entertainment and instruction, with banners, trumpets and flags.
It rained for three days and the tents were swamped. The fields were deluged, the ladies’ gowns dragged in the mud, and rain filled every goblet. The fantasy descended into chaos as the heavens opened and the people fled. When I was a child, growing up only a mile from Eglinton Castle, I became obsessed with the Tournament. It wasn’t the disaster alone. What I loved to think about, on rainy days in the 1970s, was the romance of it all, the belief invested in such splendour by everyday people. It told a story about class in Britain, a story that is more complicated (and more charming) than mere politics can describe. A part of me wants to hate the terrible waste of money in a time of poverty, but the bigger part sees it as the last, great gasp of the old world before the industrial revolution. Now, the world is enchanted with images of the British country house, the servants, the manners, the notions of order and decency, the intrigue of social differences and how they once played out. Downton Abbey has become a national obsession in the United States and elsewhere, the life of the monied, landed British gentry of the past now seeming almost magical to people who have perhaps come to know a life more ordinary.
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Hi! I have added outtakes from Lily’s latest photoshoot for Harper’s Bazaar with her ‘Downton Abbey’ co-stars.
HARPER’S BAZAAR – Go behind the scenes with the female cast of Downton Abbey during their cover shoot for the August issue of Harper’s Bazaar. Shot against the beautiful backdrop of Firle Place in Sussex, watch as photographer Alexi Lubormirski captures the actresses in a series of beautiful gowns and fine jewellery, listen to interviews with actresses Laura Carmichael and Lily James, and witness the theatrical photo shoot come to life – from hair and make-up, to costume, set and lighting.
