PLAYING A YOUNG MERYL WILL PROBABLY END MY CAREER
The actress on singing, dancing and stepping into Ms Streep’s shoes
They kept me away from all the big stars, knowing what a fan I become – just screaming and crying,” laughs Lily James. The actress is referring to her time filming upcoming musical blockbuster Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the sequel to the 2008 mega-hit, in which Lily takes on the responsibility of playing a young Donna – the role made famous by Meryl Streep – and has actual Cher playing her mother. Due to the time-split nature of the script, the 29 year old sadly never met either icon, but it seems Lily hasn’t quite grasped what a big star she herself has become.
In the few short years since her breakthrough role as Lady Rose in Downton Abbey, Lily has grabbed top-billing in Disney’s Cinderella, the BBC’S War And Peace, and Edgar Wright’s critical and commercial smash Baby Driver. This year is also going pretty well, too, what with her role opposite Oscar-winner Gary Oldman in WW2 epic Darkest Hour. And right now, on a cinema screen near you, she’s starring in heart-warming period drama The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society, in which she plays a beleaguered writer who leaves a devastated post-war London for the Channel Island, where she finds her inspiration. So, before we get to Mamma Mia!, about that title… The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society is a bit of a mouthful… I’ve gotten better at it now. I had to spend a couple of hours one
‘I feel like my entire career so far has been an accident’
day memorising it. But it is easier to simply say Guernsey… Why didn’t they just call it that? It would make it a lot simpler… No! I love that title. It’s so evocative of the time and really original. You couldn’t change it! Shame on you for suggesting. You’ve gone straight from
Darkest Hour to doing this. Are you now a WW2 expert? I feel like I’m relatively schooled on the period now, with all the reading and researching and coming at it from both sides. It was the perfect bookend really. I feel like a very, very amateur historian. We heard your gran told you stories in preparation for Darkest Hour. Did she do the same for Guernsey? Well, more for this than Darkest
Hour because she lived through German occupation in France as a child, and I’ve always been captivated by her stories of survival. My grandmother has always been my inspiration. Were there any similarities working on these movies or were they very different? These two characters, side by side, are extremes of each other. Elizabeth was in the War Rooms by Churchill’s side, whereas Juliet has survived the Blitz as a civilian – finding success in her writing during the war where her humorous cartoons were in huge demand, to struggling to find her place in the aftermath of the war when the country was trying to put itself back together. That’s what I absolutely adore about being an actor and will never tire of – getting immersed in another world, another period, to go from this to singing and dancing on a boat in the middle of the Adriatic. It’s the greatest job in the world, where you can achieve so much. And filming in Greece for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again must have been pretty amazing… We actually did it in Croatia. Still sounds awful… [Laughs.] It’s so hideous there, it hurts my eyes. There’s a lot riding on this one, and you’re playing a young Meryl Streep… I’ve basically set myself up for the biggest fall. This will probably end my career, playing a young Meryl. But I keep having to tell myself, I’m not playing Meryl, I’m playing [her character] Donna Sheridan. So, you were quite nervous then? Everyone who goes to see it will be judging me and I hope I didn’t make a silly mistake saying yes. But how could I not say yes? This was the opportunity of a lifetime. They were letting me sing ABBA songs, on a boat in Croatia, and dance around. What do you say to that? “No, let me mull it over.” Of course I was on board… literally. How much pressure did you feel? It’s a huge pressure, for a lot of reasons. I’m not joking when I say I saw Mamma Mia! eight times at the theatre, so this is big. Bigger than big. I probably saw it ten times – I was obsessed. Actually, a lot of my friends have been in the West End show – there’s a lot of [lead characters] Sophies and Skys among us and I was left out of that group, so now I’m making up for it in my own way. The trailer seems to suggest that Donna has passed away… Well, I really don’t know. What? You must? I don’t, because all my scenes were in the past, I wasn’t around for any of the modern stuff. I’m not great at keeping industry secrets, so they really haven’t told me anything. How did you prepare? Did you have to do a lot of research on Meryl? I watched all the movies she did in her twenties on repeat, because
that’s the same age Donna is when I play her. Anything else?
Just trying to study Meryl’s movements and her energy, her mannerisms, everything I could – I was writing notes and rehearsing the movements, going over and over. And it was basically an entire waste of time, because you can’t learn any of it. It’s just her, it’s who she is, it’s why she’s the greatest actor of all time. If it was teachable, what she can do, they’d be churning out Meryls every week. But she is and always will be a one of a kind, never to be repeated again. You’re becoming quite the musical star, having sung in
Baby Driver and Cinderella… It’s quite bizarre how all of a sudden, I’m singing for my supper, again literally. I used to hate it. Well, I loved it for years – I went to every musical in the West End when I was a child, but then my voice started to crack and waver. It was probably my lack