Page 20 - Ocean Blue World 26th Edition

ON THE MOVE
English Rose
Wreimagined
ith a decade in the business, 31-year-old Lily James is known for not just portraying characters like Cinderella in the wildly popular 2015 film or Juliet Ashton in the 1940s period drama
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but rather inhabiting them, transforming herself with unbound emotion.
Her exquisitely expressive face allows her an extraordinary range, and her raw vulnerability always lurks under the surface, ready to show itself when the part demands, as it did in 2020’s Rebecca, when she was cast as the second Mrs. De Winter in the screen adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier’s classic Gothic romance.
James honed her considerable chops at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, breaking into the business with the British television series Just William (2010) and then moving on to Downton Abbey (2012–2015), War & Peace (2016), Darkest Hour (2017) and playing a young Meryl Streep in 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, among others.
Her effervescent performances belie the amount of work she puts in to studying her characters, an arduous and at times emotionally draining process that involves delving deep into each role’s psyche, and the results continue to astound. While she may have been typecast as an English rose early in her career, this gifted and determined actress has proven herself to be so much more.
“It’s funny because I wasn’t always the English rose, I didn’t play those roles at drama school, or in my first theater job. Over time, I’ve sort of morphed into a version of myself that I’ve been cast as.”
War & Peace
Photos Courtesy Of: PBS, BBC Worldwide 20 | www.OceanBlueWorld.com