Lily James is aware of her manner round bodily transformation, writ giant or small. “I simply minimize all my hair off, though I wish to go shorter and shorter,” the actor says, displaying off a clavicle-grazing bob throughout a latest video interview from London. If there was as soon as a way of business warning round impulsive magnificence adjustments, James waves it away. “I feel life’s too quick. You’ve simply received to personal your individual physique. Do what you need.” In truth, she says, mentioning my fringe, “I used to be simply considering reducing one, and now I undoubtedly wish to!”
Such off-camera freedom is made potential, partially, by the sorcery that occurs in hair and make-up trailers. For final 12 months’s Hulu restricted collection Pam & Tommy, slipping into the function of ’90s icon Pamela Anderson concerned a three-hour metamorphosis for James. There was the brow extension embellished with skinny lace brows and a chest prosthetic scaled for her slender ribcage, plus a square-tipped French manicure, Baywatch tan, and a rotating set of platinum wigs. The ensuing portrayal—suffused together with her topic’s tender intelligence—earned James a first-time Emmy nomination, and he or she’s up for a Golden Globe this weekend. “With Pamela, attending to dwell inside her physique, her sensuality, her confidence was actually inspiring and life-changing, in a manner, for me,” the actor says, reflecting on the challenge’s ongoing reverb. (Anderson’s personal Netflix documentary lands January 31.) “By the very nature of taking part in [a role] time and again for months on finish, it stays with you.”
One other inimitable tackle glamour is staring again at me onscreen: the sculpted glow on James’s face, as solely make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury can do. “This chance to be one in all her muses and work with Charlotte has been so thrilling and galvanizing,” says James, who positively gleams within the marketing campaign for the road’s new highlighter, launching at present. Named the Hollywood Glow Glide Face Architect, this pocket-size surprise is the reply to Tilbury’s personal query, as she put it to me not too long ago at New York’s Bowery Lodge: “What do I give my Hollywood stars, and the way do I give this to the general public?” (To herself too: “I’ve received a significant hangover at present,” she confessed. “Like, I’m exhausted, I haven’t slept correctly, I’ve received jet lag, da da da. However,” she mentioned with a mischievous glint, “look good, really feel good—proper?”)
What Tilbury’s group got here up with is a powder formulation that masquerades as a forgiving cream texture, because of squalene and different emollients; there are seven delicate tints, starting from Moonlit to Bronze to rosy Pillow Speak. That makes the highlighter notably suited to a swath of ages, pores and skin tones, and stylistic moods, whether or not or not it’s Kate Moss, Jodie Turner-Smith, or whoever else may need a number of well-placed beams. “I’m a light-weight thief,” Tilbury cooed, “as a result of make-up’s all about gentle.”
The flame-haired Tilbury is her personal sort of beacon. “She’s the individual you might be drawn to within the room. She has probably the most beautiful vitality,” says James, stationed at Claridge’s for the day, amid a stretch of December snow. She’s grateful to be again in London following a protracted shoot in Louisiana for Iron Claw, an upcoming A24 film a couple of real-life professional wrestling household. James discovered her manner into the Tilbury fold final fall, with a marketing campaign for its cult moisturizer—“which I genuinely am obsessive about,” James enthuses. (What Tilbury loves most about her model companions is their unabashed fandom: “I’ll sit with them, and so they can recount to me the facility of Magic Cream.”) The brand new Hollywood Glow Glide is already as beloved, with James likening its results to what a grasp DP can do on set. “Again within the day, that was how these stars appeared so glamorous. This highlighter, you set it in your cheekbones, an exclamation in your nostril, below your eyebrows, a bit dot right here on the cupid’s bow of your lip, and right here in your jaw,” she says, like a speaking paint-by-numbers train. “It’s actually minimal effort and an enormous, big, impact.”
The titans of traditional Hollywood are continuous references for James. “All the flicks with Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn and Katharine Hepburn, that’s what I grew up watching,” she explains. “I used to look at them at my granny’s home on VCR.” Final summer season, manufacturing for the upcoming movie, Finalmente L’Alba, took James again in time to Cinecittà of the Nineteen Fifties, together with her taking part in an American actress. She immersed herself in Italian cinema: La Dolce Vita, La Notte. “The ladies had such energy and charm and sexuality—actual confidence,” James says, summoning Monica Vitti (patron saint of The White Lotus) to thoughts. “I received to dwell on this movie after which shoot this marketing campaign, which is de facto all about recreating that Hollywood glamour.”
