The past few years for Lily James have been an extended exercise in letting things happen and reaping the benefits. Case in point, James speaks to me on the morning of an unbearable heatwave from an enchanting sunsoaked garden outside of her 250-year-old London home, flowers blossoming just out of frame, ivy crawling up the regency-era facade in the backdrop. She appears to be inhabiting a romantic dreamland. What did she have to let happen to get here, one may ask? Two and a half years of renovations, multiple floods, a ceiling collapse.

That being said, James tells me, her vision for the future of the home persisted from the moment she saw it. When she first arrived, “I looked in and saw the Juliet balconies with wisteria going up the back and…I gave a little spin around and was like, ‘I’m in.’ Then it all went wrong,” she laughs. “Organization is not my strong point, so I did everything slightly out of sync. But once it was done, it sort of all felt meant to be.” 

Now over a decade into her career, James is still in pursuit of what is meant to be. After her breakout role in Downton Abbey in 2012, James appeared in films like Cinderella, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and Baby Driver. And, in recent years, numerous biopic roles: she’s embodied Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, she’s been Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in the 2025 film Swiped; she had a turn as wife of Kevin Von Erich, Pam Adkisson, in 2023’s A24 The Iron Claw—responsibilities she did not take lightly. 

After losing her father while she was at drama school, James began asking herself a particularly complex artistic question. “I was in this crazy experience of grief and acting and living in London. I was in a sensory overload, and at one point during drama school I was like, ‘Who the fuck am I to tell someone’s story? How can I really imagine what it’s like? And how dare I? And how could I? And how presumptuous of me?’”

James has spent the rest of her career taking that very risk. “You have to decide to take that leap and to think that you can offer something up. And, my God, it’s empathy. It’s curiosity. It’s exploration. And if that comes from a pure place, then you have to just commit.” 

Last year in Japan, James was filming for Takashi Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, a project that recently premiered at TIFF. “I love throwing myself into an environment that’s completely new and challenging and exciting, and traveling is like the core of what kind of fills me up,” James shares of the project. “It was so bold. It was so out there. He’s such an auteur. He knew exactly the edit and the film before he did it; he’s made like 150 or 200 movies. It was so enriching. It truly shifted all this old energy.” 

She’ll also soon appear in horror thriller The Liberation (which premiered  at Telluride to positive reviews), as a voice in the Angry Birds franchise, and in action flick Cliffhanger, to release in February. She’s got three other projects (working titles Subversion, Seasons, and Let the Evil Go West) in preproduction. It’s been years of back-to-back projects for James, and, following the energetic reinvigoration of Bad Lieutenant, James decided it was time for a change of pace. She wanted to chase the feeling.

“I’ve worked pretty consistently since I was 21, and I was beginning to just feel so even beyond burned out,” James explains. “I was scared I was losing the joy and losing that kind of fire. I really had to be honest with myself.  I’ve had an incredible time [going on] different kinds of adventures, owning my time, and taking the reins back of my life.” 

Thus began an eight-month-long adventure in pursuit of finding that fire again. “People talk about how you have to refill the well, and you have to recharge. I think going from one job to the next, not only was I feeling like I wasn’t recharging or finding new sources of inspiration, but also blink, and you’ve missed a year. You do three films and then you’re screwed,” James says. She continues, “I’m so lucky. And there’s a whole conversation around momentum and building and building and going and going and faster and faster and like for what, to what? I don’t know. Suddenly it became very elusive.” 

Thus, she set off on the solo trip of a lifetime. “I went on my own for five weeks, and it was mind-blowing. I worked with these incredible different NGOs [in Cambodia] and did a bit of stuff with UNICEF, and it was so meaningful. I was there on my birthday. I was alone. [I spent] my 37th birthday with strangers, it was really cool.” A highlight for James in particular was the Cambodian New Year, which she spent in Phnom Penh. “It is the wildest, most beautiful  festival vibe I’ve ever experienced. Everyone’s throwing buckets of water, and they’re throwing talcum powder that’s colored. I came back drenched. It was just so joyful and mad.” 

Unfortunately for James, a scooter accident sent her back to the UK earlier than she would have preferred. “I was on an island with no hospital, on my own…I basically cheese grated and burnt the skin off my legs...then it got infected…so that kind of brought me home a little early, but that was probably good because otherwise I may still be there. It was incredible,” she laughs.

Now recharged and ready to get back to work, James is focused on adjusting back to her life in London. “I’m kind of in this moment of shape-shifting back into work, and it feels a little uncomfortable. But I’ve also really found love again. I’m so excited. It’s reminded me how much I love acting and finding a character, storytelling, and that stuff. So it’s a relief.” 

She’s particularly excited for her next project, the aforementioned The Liberation, directed by Guy Nattiv—one that feels distinctly different from anything she’s taken on in recent years. “This next role I’m doing is entirely different. It’s in the horror space, psychological horror. That is [going to entail being] as vulnerable and raw as possible,” she says. “Having a great director lead you—there is nothing like that. Having a great script and performances in the hands of someone that is going to elevate and transform the work that you’re doing. It blows my mind how the directors [execute,] because it’s all their vision and how they want to put it together.”

Until then, she plans to enjoy her remaining time relishing in the comfort of her beautiful home which, due to record-breaking summer temperatures, will potentially be in need of some TLC. “It’s built on a hill,

so every day I see like a new crack going down my lovely painted walls [especially in this extreme heat],” she shares. But, as an adventurer and a lover of letting things happen, James will continue to embrace whatever it is the universe has in store for her home, and for her. “You live in the imperfection of it,” she says. “Which makes it kind of perfect.” 

Photographed by Jason Hetherington

Styled by Ignacio De Tiedra

Written by Emma Turetsky

Hair: Davide Barbieri at A-Frame Agency

Makeup: Alex Babsky at A-Frame Agency

Flaunt Film: Rodney Rico