Lily James’ upcoming slate of films are throwbacks in uniquely different ways.
Beginning with Saverio Costanzo’s 1950s-set Italian drama Finally Dawn, James plays Josephine Esperanto, an Elizabeth Taylor-type movie star who ropes a rejected background artist (Rebecca Antonaci’s Mimosa) into a pivotal scene of her sword-and-sandals epic. From there, Josephine, her co-star Sean Lockwood (Joe Keery) and her jack-of-all trades, Rufo Priori (Willem Dafoe), pressure Mimosa into exploring Rome’s nightlife with them.
While en route to one of their two destinations, Sean Lockwood’s acting insecurities get the better of him, and Josephine makes a half-hearted attempt to compliment their scene work that day. According to James, it’s a highly relatable scene for most actors.
“At their worst, actors are an insecure bunch of self-obsessed, needy humans. Actors and artists are often called upon to be very vulnerable … so it can trigger some serious insecurity and a need for validation,” James tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Finally Dawn’s July 18 release. “There have been so many times where I’ve heard myself go, ‘God, I should have said that line differently.’ But then I’m like, ‘Shut up. It doesn’t matter. It’s done. Let it go.’”
On Aug. 22, James returns to the big screen opposite Riz Ahmed in David Mackenzie’s ‘70s-inspired paranoid thriller, Relay. The English actor portrays Sarah Grant, a reluctant whistleblower who decides not to expose the unscrupulous company she works for as long as her safety and asking price are honored. To pull this feat off, she recruits Ahmed’s mysterious fixer, who strictly utilizes a teletypewriter and relay service to communicate with his clients. Thus, the majority of James and Ahmed’s scenes involve a dispassionate third-party operator reading typed messages from Ahmed’s character to James’ character by phone.
“When I watched the movie for the first time at TIFF [2024] on the big screen, I was like, ‘Wow, it’s incredible that there’s this great electricity between these two characters when they barely meet,’” James says. “So it was quite a sleight of hand that David [Mackenzie] pulled that off in terms of filmmaking.”
And at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future, James’ reimagining of Sylvester Stallone’s 1993 action-thriller Cliffhanger will arrive in cinemas. Written by Ana Lily Amirpour and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, James is joined by Pierce Brosnan and Nell Tiger Free in the new take on the mountainside actioner.
Similar to her Emmy-nominated performance as Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy, James went above and beyond for this particular role.
“Oh my God, I had the time of my life. It was so hard. I did five hours of climbing a day for many weeks. I was on mountains nonstop. I fell completely in love with it,” James shares. “It’s the most mind-body-soul activity. And I’m a [mountain-climbing] addict now. I did all my own climbing [in the film], and I got real strong. I was just pounding press-ups between every take.”
As for the film itself, it’s currently in post-production, and James is optimistic about its standing.
“I’m really proud of Cliffhanger. I’m so excited. We’re in the edit and getting it ready, and I’m super hopeful,” James adds. “It is such a cool reimagining, and while it’s really unexpected at times, it keeps all the gripping glory of the original, I hope.”
Below, during a recent conversation with THR, James also discusses how Finally Dawn depicts an uncomfortable scenario that many performers often face in everyday life.
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In Finally Dawn, your movie star character sees this young Italian woman who’s wandering the halls of Cinecittà Studios, and so she has her join a scene in her quintessential Hollywood epic. Have you ever seen a random person pulled into a scene like this?
You often get those stories of directors seeing someone with an interesting face or energy. They’ll see someone on the street buying a Mars bar, and they’ll go, “Oh my God, they’re a star!’ They need to be in my movie.” There’s a desire not to have a [known] actor and to have real people with real faces.
But in [Finally Dawn], my character Josephine Esperanto is just longing. She’s longing for inspiration, longing to feel alive, longing for something pure and not cynical or bitter or abused by life and Hollywood. So this girl [Antonaci’s Mimosa] represents that, and she becomes Josephine’s muse. She takes her in, and she wants to steal her light or use her light in a way.
Lily James as Josephine Esperanto in Finally Dawn
Courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films
Josephine then invents this persona for Mimosa in the form of a Swedish poet named Sandy. Was it originally meant to take attention away from Rachel Sennott’s character? Or is this just how she entertains herself?
Saverio Costanzo’s script is just so layered, nuanced and beautiful. It’s like a gigantic poem, and I fell in love with the script the moment I read it. Josephine’s motivations for that evening are very complex. She’s a woman that’s run out of joy, and she’s run out of the reasons for why she’s doing what she’s doing. So this girl represents this beauty and innocence, and Josephine almost wants to create and destroy Mimosa all at once. There’s these conflicting energies within her, and she’s a character in chaos.
But one of her other motivations is to take down Rachel Sennott’s character a peg or two and prove that she’s not that special. Josephine wants to bring someone else into the limelight instead of her. There’s this warring actress in her that’s jealous, but also fed up.
She eventually tries to humiliate “Sandy” by putting her on the spot to perform a poem in front of a whole party of self-important people. I’m sure every performer has their version of this story, but have you found yourself in situations off set or off stage where you’ve been pressured to sing or deliver an impromptu monologue?
(Laughs.) All the time! My family is like, “Go on, Lily, sing!” And I’m like, “No!’ There are traditions in Ireland where everyone gets up and sings without being overly self-conscious or worrying. But, yeah, [being put on the spot] is one of my worst nightmares aside from being on stage and realizing you’re naked. (Laughs.) You’re suddenly thrust upon to do something, and you feel completely ill-equipped and inadequate. And then there’s that imposter syndrome where you’re like, “What the hell do I do?”
What Josephine does to Mimosa in that moment makes and destroys her at the same time. It’s so cruel to do it to this girl that she’s brought into her world to boost and bring alive. But once Josephine sees that Mimosa potentially has something that might overtake her or make people more fascinated by her than herself, she aims to destroy her in an instant. I loved that Josephine was capable of such cruelty, but also of such generosity all at once. She’s such a beautiful, conflicted character. I really related to how you never really know what she’s trying to do, and I don’t think she knows either.
Talk shows are known to do that too: “Hey, do the accent you did in the movie,” or, “Let’s hear your Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.”
(Laughs.) But the worst thing is that it’s always a little bit planned. So you have to pretend that you haven’t actually said that you can rap this song, but you have because you told the research [team] that.
Oh, right. The pre-interview.
But they do thrust things upon you too. I also love watching that as an audience. I like seeing someone react under pressure and seeing their hidden talents. There’s something kind of exciting about it.
Joe Keery’s Sean Lockwood and Lily James’ Josephine Esperanto in Finally Dawn
Courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films
Are there lots of real-life Sean Lockwoods (Joe Keery) where you have to constantly put their insecurities as actors at ease?
(Laughs.) Yeah, there’s a lot of Sean Lockwoods, but there’s also a lot of Susan Lockwoods. At their worst, actors are an insecure bunch of self-obsessed, needy humans. Actors and artists are often called upon to be very vulnerable and reveal themselves in front of a room full of people. So it can trigger some serious insecurity and a need for validation. But that scene [between Josephine and Sean] really made me laugh. There have been so many times where I’ve heard myself go, “God, I should have said that line differently. If only I’d done it like that.” But then I’m like, “Shut up. It doesn’t matter. It’s done. Let it go.”
I last spoke to you when you were filming David Mackenzie’s Relay, which is a ‘70s thriller in modern times. Were you able to read the script without being spoiled ahead of time?
Yeah, when I read Relay, I had the same reaction that I hope audiences have. I hadn’t read a breakdown, so I didn’t know what the twists and turns were going to be. And like Finalmente L’alba or Finally Dawn, I found the script in a very different way. Finally Dawn was this poetic romance looking at cinema and poetry in Italy. It’s a beautiful throwback to La Dolce Vita and the Golden Age of Cinema. And then Relay felt like this really gripping, dark thriller that exposes the world of whistleblowers and the idea of this greater control and always being watched. It felt really surprising, and I was thrilled to get to work with such a unique filmmaker in David Mackenzie. His movies feel so cinematic and grounded and bold and original.
Riz [Ahmed] is also one of the most exciting actors out there, especially when you see what he’s able to convey with no dialogue in the first 20 minutes of the movie. The connection we were able to build despite our characters very rarely being in the same room together was a real challenge. And when I watched the movie for the first time at TIFF on the big screen, I was like, “Wow, it’s incredible that there’s this great electricity between these two characters when they barely meet.” So it was quite a sleight of hand that David pulled that off in terms of filmmaking.
Lily James as Sarah Grant in Relay
Bleeker Street
On the day, who did you actually interact with during the phone calls with the relay service?
Phone calls are the worst! It’s usually like the Second AD, but I actually had a really wonderful actor come in. Riz wasn’t able to do it because of our times and turnarounds, and he was probably shooting other things. It was a really tough shoot. We shot a lot of nights, so we’d go in at 9:00 PM and leave at 6:00 AM. But I had a really great actor who was there. With acting, your focus needs to be on what the other person is doing and responding to them, but that’s tricky in phone calls. So I was lucky to have an actor read the off-lines.
Part of me wants a spinoff about the relay service operators just to hear their conversations about these high-stakes phone calls they’re facilitating.
I know! It’s really funny, isn’t it? The actor was giving me the lines in terms of the scene’s drama so I had something to react upon. But the operators are actually just reading the text [they’re provided] like a script. They’re not putting any kind of intentional motivation into the lines. So it was a really unique and tricky situation to navigate.
If Relay went the more conventional route by the end, do you think you still would’ve been interested?
Honestly, I was so excited to work with David Mackenzie and Riz that I almost would’ve done any old thing that they put in front of me. That being said, you love to find work that’s surprising and characters that take you in a direction you didn’t anticipate. And particularly at this point in my career, I want to keep pushing myself to play unlikely roles, roles that surprise me, and have something to get my teeth into. So that [unconventionality] was definitely what was very appealing about this role and story.
When people think of you, they typically associate you with this role or that role, but in my case, your impressive table tennis skills are now where I go first. Have you ever gotten the chance to blindside or hustle castmates or crewmembers with your ability?
(Laughs.) Literally, the thing I’m most cocky about is my table tennis. My friends laugh that I’ll probably let people know within the first 10 minutes of meeting them that I can play table tennis and that I have a French grandmother. But I’ll give you a spoiler: there might be some more table tennis coming up in my next movie. So, get ready!
Oh, I’m ready.
Knowing that you are my biggest fan when it comes to table tennis, I’ll be thinking of you when watching it.
I joked about this with Sean Durkin, but your hand-eye coordination was also on display at the end of The Iron Claw when the family was throwing the football around in the yard. Zac Efron dropped the ball, but you caught it.
Well, I’m so glad you noticed. I’m finally getting the recognition I so rightly deserve. (Laughs.) I am quite proud of my hand-eyeball coordination. I grew up [playing games and sports] with two brothers, so I appreciate that.
Did your athletic prowess also serve you well on Cliffhanger?
Oh, good segue!
Thanks, I planned that.
(Laughs.) Oh my God, I had the time of my life. It was so hard. I did five hours of climbing a day for many weeks, and I had the most amazing teacher. I was on mountains nonstop. I fell completely in love with it. It’s the most mind-body-soul activity. It’s so deeply athletic, but also meditative. And I’m a [mountain-climbing] addict now. (James holds her hand up to the camera.) I broke my little finger at Christmas, and I was so sad because I couldn’t climb.
But I’m really proud of Cliffhanger. I’m so excited. We’re in the edit and getting it ready, and I’m super hopeful. It is such a cool reimagining, and while it’s really unexpected at times, it keeps all the gripping glory of the original, I hope. I did all my own climbing, and I got real strong. (Laughs.) I was just pounding press-ups between every take.
Lily James in Jaume Collet-Serra’s Cliffhanger
Courtesy of Rocket Science
Pierce Brosnan playing your father should be interesting for Mamma Mia! fans.
We were so lucky to have him, and he’s so brilliant in the movie. He’s one of life’s true gentlemen, and he was such a brilliant actor to have as our father in this story. He just brings real heart, and he elevates the whole thing. He’s just a dream, and getting to work with him again was so wonderful.
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Finally Dawn opens July 18 in movie theaters; Relay releases August 22 in movie theaters.