Lily James Keeps Proving She's Hollywood's Ultimate Chameleon
Lily James is a busy woman. Our call is rescheduled twice, including once on a Sunday, because she's just flown out for a shoot in a different time zone. When she finally greets me on Zoom from a hotel suite in Vancouver—fresh-faced and makeup-free after a morning workout—she is brimming with apologies, and all is instantly forgotten. "Thank you for being so patient," she says, clasping her hands together in contrition. "It's been really wild over here."
Who can blame her for the packed schedule? James is the epitome of a modern-day workhorse. The SAG Award–winning actor has been working in Hollywood for over a decade and a half, and she's only 36. The British star has built a chameleonic filmography that most actors would happily sacrifice an arm and a leg to achieve. There's musical gold—who can forget her winsome turn as the all-singing, all-dancing young Donna Sheridan in Mamma Mia 2? She's done achingly cool A24 fare, courtesy of the savage wrestling saga The Iron Claw, and ticked off nail-biting heist action in the form of Edgar Wright's surprise box-office smash Baby Driver. She's been Pamela Anderson for Pam & Tommy—for which she donned extensive prosthetics and was subsequently nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe. She's played Cinderella, zombie-slaying Elizabeth Bennet, and Winston Churchill's secretary (not in the same movie, obviously). Look close enough and you can spot James's moon-pale face and enormous brown eyes featuring in every single movie genre in existence. James doesn't just have range—she's got a veritable mountain of it.
"I do find acting kind of addictive," she admits today, pushing her newly dyed black hair behind her ears. "I feel lucky to do this job because you take on a role and go, 'God, I don't know where I am in that,' then you find it, and you've completely stretched the boundaries of what you think you're capable of." She's on a rest day (sort of) from shooting her latest film Harmonia, an '80s thriller that revolves around a mysterious all-female cult/commune. James, alongside The White Lotus breakout favorite Carrie Coon, plays a dazzling spiritual leader—hence the siren-esque raven hair and chunky moonstone necklace peeking out from her blue-and-white Hunza G shirt. It's all in service to her character, though she's no stranger to brunette hair. She last dyed it black and bleached her brows for a Versace campaign in 2023. ("Anything Donatella asks me, I would say yes!")
"I'm wearing a lot of crystals at the moment," James says as she pulls a beginner's guide to crystals off her desk. "I have some crystal tarot cards that I've been asking really important questions to. My agent's like, 'You can't answer questions based on crystal tarot cards that you don't even know how to use yet!'"
Right now, though, she is here to talk about another project—three, in fact. The 36-year-old British actress is pulling a hat trick this year. First on the slate is Finally Dawn, a fizzy Fellini-esque Italian period drama in which she stars as a malcontented movie star, which is set to premiere a few days after we speak. Next is Relay, a phenomenally sleek corporate thriller from the English director David Mackenzie. (I've been sent a top-secret screening link, and let me tell you—you're a smarter person than I am if you spot its mic-drop twist.) Finally, there's Swiped, the long-awaited Whitney Wolfe Herd biopic, in which James takes on the role of the Bumble founder and Tinder cofounder who took her former company to court for sexual harassment.
Phew, I'm exhausted just running through that list, so I can only imagine what it's been like for James. "I honestly feel quite schizophrenic talking about all these projects," she says earnestly. Finally Dawn (its original title is Finalmente l'alba, which she pronounces in flawless Italian)has impeccable European auteur pedigree in the form of director Saverio Costanzo, who is better known for showrunning the award-garlanded TV adaption of Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. Finally Dawn was actually shot years ago, and its release was delayed by the SAG-AFTRA strikes, James explains. "I'm so excited it's finally coming out and people will get to see it," she adds, clearly pleased as punch. "It's shot on film, and it's just utterly stunning."
Relay was a different proposition altogether. The Manhattan-set nail-biter features James as a whistleblower scientist who seeks help from a solitary fixer played by Riz Ahmed, who is also British. I ask jokingly, Did the two ever talk about stealing American jobs? James bursts into laughter. "I stay in my American accent when I'm on set just because I find it a bit harder to slip in and out," she admits. Around a fellow Brit, though, "it's slightly more embarrassing to be speaking in an American accent."
