Lily James: Career Study

Britain's finest acting export to Hollywood, Lily James, consistently brings her energy and sensitivity to roles in both the latest blockbusters and indie-dramas - we review her career

Lily James in 'Baby Driver' (CREDIT: Working Title/Sony)

by Jack Linsdell 

Everyone knows her face, and most recognise her name, but British actress Lily James has found herself by the age of 30 as a true movie star. With an impressive filmography, of a calibre akin to any of Hollywood's finest actresses, Lily James has found success in popular and/or blockbuster movies like Baby Driver, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again and recently Yesterday, cementing herself as a household name, whilst also delivering powerful, emotionally-gripping performances in indie-dramas like The Exception and Little Woods, yet still she's without major BAFTA or Oscar nominations for anything she's done on film. I know, a big injustice. So, yes, although she's been very successful, Lily James's career highlights a growing trend in Hollywood where young actress consistently deliver powerhouse performances from film to film, yet receive very little, if none at all, critical and award recognition. So, without further ado...here we go. 

Lily only started her acting career at the age of 21, which for an actress is late, especially in comparison to other young actresses in the industry like Ellie Fanning and Chloë Grace Moretz who at the ages of 21/22 have already been in over 80 movies between them. Having studied acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Lily kickstarted her career in 2010 with a role in the BBC TV drama Just William and then later bagged herself a supporting role in the hit British period drama Downton Abbey as the rebellious Lady Rose - no, she's not reprising her role for the Downton Abbey movie as she's too busy now! But, soon Lady Rose became very popular with audiences for her outragouesness, leading to her becoming a main character in the fourth and fifth season. 

Now, this brings me to acting school. I believe that acting (much like screenwriting, and to a point directing) can only be taught so far. By that I mean that people have to have an element of natural talent, flair and creativity for storytelling in the first place, which teaching can then build upon and refine. I don't believe it's possible for a quality storyteller (be that an actor or a writer) to have no interest or ability, attend school for five years and come out the other side as one of the most genous creatives around. But, what's intriguing about Lily's story is that despite obviously having reems of natural talent and energy for performaning, she obviously learn't a lot about how to use her acting skills (like voice projection, stage prescence etc.) to cement herself as one of the best actors in the business. It just shows you, that whilst most of the actresses that I regularly mention (and those British stars like Lily Collins) who are acting since childhood and build up their skills and experience "on the job/set" so to speak, Lily had a later entry into proffessional acting, taking the time to develop herself within a school of teachers - and it's obviously worked wonders for her. 

After Downton Abbey, Lily landed perhaps her most notable, and defiently her breakthrough, role in Kenneth Branagh's live-action remake for Disney of Cinderella in 2015. For those that don't know, she played the titular character and captured the hearts of the nation and many young girls across the world, bringing her relentless energy and innocence to the part, making it her own. The movie was a massive success ($543 million worldwide on a $90 million budget, not to mention Oscar and BAFTA wins for Best Costume) and James had just cemented herself onto the world stage. As we've seen with Naomi Scott on the recent Aladdin remake and Halle Bailey for the upcoming The Little Mermaid, the lead actress in a Disney flick always grabs the interest of social media, but also the industry too. Truly, for Lily, going from relatively, low-key success on British TV to a globally recognisable face and name was a remarkable achievement. I first saw Cinderella two years ago on the TV at Christmas having missed it every year prior to that, and I will say it's an excellent movie. Not just because Lily is, as ever, a standout, but that all the characters are incrediablly well-sketched and it's both entertaining and an emotionally/morally fulfilling movie. But, Cinderella also provided the world with proof that Lily has an incredible singing voice when she sung 'A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes' and 'Lavender's Blue', and that she's a performer in the true sense of the word. Her singing skills would later help her bag a part in the Mamma Mia sequel, also. 

After Cinderella, Lily returned to British TV with another hit show War & Peace opposite James Norton as Natasha Rostovo, and contiuned to win acclaim and fans. Lily has had three types of roles in her career - lead characters in musicals (Cinderella, Mamma Mia 2, Yesterday), supporting characters in low-budget movies (Baby Driver, Little Woods) and serious characters in period dramas (War & Peace, Downton Abbey, The Exception, Darkest Hour). And, with War & Peace she proved that she could really nail that serious, uptight and mysterious character in period dramas. The same year, she was in another one of her "big" Hollywood movies Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is where she met her current boyfriend (former Doctor Who himself) Matt Smith. So, not only was that movie an important one for Lily personally, but it also showed her immense verstilitity and popularity - somehow she can transcend from the dramatic series to the pop-corn fantasy movies in the blink of an eye, yet still deliver the same level of deep entertainment that comes with everyone of her works. 

Lily continued growing in success and popularity, with 2017 perhaps being her "best" year yet in her career. First up was Edgar Wright's crime-heist-comedy flick Baby Driver, which not only had Lily acting with big Hollywood names like Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm and Kevin Spacey (before the controversy came out), but was another sleeper hit earning over $230 million worldwide on a $35 budget. This was another entertaining and hugely popular movie, yet Lily's spellbinding performance meant that she captured our attention every second she was in front of the camera, overshadowing all these a-list names with such an emotive, captivating and fun performance as waitress Debora. Not to mention, her chemistry with Ansel Egort, in which the pair really sold and invested you into their love relationship, in a way that had you cheering for them both when the climatic twist was revealed. Also, that year she appeared in Joe Wright's Oscar and BAFTA winning period drama about the life of Winston Churchill opposite Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour. Playing Churchill's Secretary Elizabeth Layton, James had a lot of fun with the character, capturing her grief, sense of humour, excitement and nerves at being so close to the PM of Britain, and once again captured the screen. To top of such a fine year, she had the lead role in the exceptional drama about the life of Kaiser Wilhelm II (played by Christopher Plummer), The Exception. This is a very low-budget and mostly unknown movie, but it's one of James's most standout roles. She's once again, selling a sincere love relationship with Jai Courtenays' German General (like in Baby Driver), but also that darkness and drama that she's familar with from War & Peace, as her character is (spoiler alert) a spy and has a lot of secrets lurking below the surface. If you've not seen The Exception, then make an exception to see it. 

2018 saw Lily take on her other most prolific (and dream) role as the young Donna Sheridon in the hit musical sequel Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, in which her singing and dance skills once again impressed critics and wowed audiences, helping to send the soundtrack to the Bilboard top spot and it's still in the charts around the world today. Playing a young Meryl Streep is no easy task, and James prepared by watching Streep's movies and studying her mannerisms (nice job if you can get it, right?), and despite mixed critical reactions, her performance was widely agreed by all as one of the movie's highlights. Cue a $394 million worldwide cume on a $90 million budget, plus becoming one of the UK's highest grossing movies ever (it's second highest grossing movie of 2018), and James had not only achieved another personal achievement in her career (it's no secret she's a big ABBA fan!) but once again shown that, big or small doesn't matter. Lily can knock any movie role out of the park. That year also brought us the long and strange titled (deep breath) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (and breath!), in which she played struggling writer Juliet Ashton, who wrote about the Guernsey people and their struggles from Nazi Occupation in WW2. Don't let the title put you off folks, as it's another beautiful movie, with James at the centre of it all again. This one feels like the accumilation of all her roles so far, combining the romance, the period drama, the fun and the emotional complexity all into one movie. Also, we had her indie budget movie, Little Woods, alongside Tessa Thompson, and like The Exception, if you can cope with it's darkness, it's another powerhouse performance from both James and Thompson and a film that deserves more praise and publicity than it ever got. 

And, that brings us to this year and her role as Ellie in Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle's Beatles-themed musical (?) romance Yesterday. Playing singer Jack Malik's manager, Lily turned what was a thinly written character (especially for Curtis's standards) into someone who we actually felt real emotion and sympathy for. Regardless of my views of the movie's quality (especially compared to Curtis's About Time), it's certainly a very entertaining movie and one in which James truly shows her talent - she turns Ellie from someone whose redundant and along for the ride into a compelling and strong major female character mostly on her own acting ability. Fantastic. Either way, cue another crowd pleasing movie and Lily is well and truly a household name. Yet, still no Oscar wins, let alone nominations. What's going on? Lastly, we can't fail to mention her her incredible theatre work, especially this year alongside Gillian Anderson in the play All About Eve, playing Eve at the Noel Coward Theatre. I caught this one in a live screening to my local cinema and have to say left the cinema spellbounded. She had lengthy scenes of what I call "emotional monloguing" where it was her, centre stage, holding everyone's attention, as she perfectly balanced Eve's antonginstic manipulative character with her emotionally bruised and relatable personality. It's one thing to be a fantastic movie actress where you have retakes and editing to make you look better. But, to conquer theatre, in which your completely exposed for two-three hours is perhaps her greatest career achievement so far.

I'll bring this career study to a close by saying that Lily is one of a few "expressionist" actors that regular readers know I've put into a little group. But unlike most of the members (Hailee Steinfeld, Chloë Grace Moretz, Isabela Moner, Sabrina Carpenter) she's way older than their collective age range of 18-22, yet still posseses the same talent. For those that don't know, these very talent actresses (alongside those actors like Andrew Garfield) are really rare and underappreciated talents, who can convey the greatest bits of storytelling and emotion in the tiniest of actions, gestures or tones. They all can emote so much just from their eyes alone, and although there are many greats in the business, how they all, including Lily haven't won a single Oscar each baffles me. This group is of a talent of acting that is unteachable. They all have the most fixating stage presence, and have the rare skill of giving consistently top-class performances on every movie (regardless of it's eventual quality) and only picking the best stories/characters to bring to life on screen. They aren't restricted by genre or a film's budget, and for Lily, not only is she much older than the rest of this exclusive group, but she's not a proffessional singer (although she could well be) like most of them are. 

Next to be seen in the adaption of the novel Rebecca and Billie Piper's direcorial debut Rare Beasts, James will continue to chose only the best projects to be a part of, and deliver consistently spellbinding performances time after time. I hope the Academy catches up with her talent eventually, but even if they never do, then she should be very proud of the people she's inspired and entertained over the years. And, I'm one of them. If you haven't caught one of her movies, then do so immediately. I'll guarentee, you'll come away feeling truly amazed at how talented she is.