IN FULL BLOOM
At just 26 years old, Australian actress Tessa James has been to hell and back. But now there’s a new kind of happiness on the horizon, and she’s revelling in her latest role
After a challenging few years, actress Tessa James is gearing up for her most important and exciting role to date: mother.
There’s no mistaking Tessa James is pregnant. In a simple black Bassike tee, Zara trousers (elasticised) and Balenciaga sandals, she looks every bit her easy, understated, stylish self, albeit with a 24-week-old baby bump. “I kept it a secret for a good five months,” she says, settling into our lunch spot’s plush banquette. The petite actress is referring to the press-heavy David Jones spring/ summer collections launch, where her figure-hiding tiered lace Erdem dress wasn’t enough to stave off interest in the headline-making revelation (her agent confirmed the news the day after). “I didn’t mean for it to come out. I guess you can’t help what your body does. It was important to me to keep it for myself and my family... but by no means was I upset.”
Australia could be forgiven for feeling a vested interest in James. Well known and much loved to television viewers thanks to her role as the fun and feisty Nicole Franklin on Home And Away from 2008 to 2011, the Melbourne-born star had been following her dream of pursuing a career in Hollywood when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 23 upon noticing a lump above her collarbone. After 12 gruelling chemotherapy treatments that saw her lose her hair and, at times, her will to live – at her lowest point she phoned her dad to tell him she wanted to die – James emerged from the harrowing experience to share her story of survival on air with her husband, NRL player Nate Myles, by her side. An otherwise private person, she felt strongly about raising awareness for other people going through the same thing, and the nation fell in love with her all over again.
For a woman to have any life event under public scrutiny is an unenviable thing, least of all when it comes to fertility. Which is what makes James’ openness about her and Myles’ decision not to put off cancer treatment in order to freeze her eggs, a process that would have delayed her treatment by a month or more, particularly brave. It also explains why some corners of the press are keen to label this a “miracle pregnancy”. Almost three years after being given the all-clear, a baby comes as big news. But James takes a more philosophical tack. “I think everyone’s situation in terms of being ill and coming to that crossroad is different because everybody’s diagnosis is different, everybody’s life is different... it’s really up to the individual, and for us it was a decision that we made, and that was for Nate and me,” she says. “I think that ‘miracle’ has come from the media and not from something that I’ve said, but in saying that, being pregnant is a miracle because growing a baby, it’s pretty incredible when you think about it. When you haven’t had children and you see mums and kids everywhere you just think that’s normal. But when it happens to you, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, all these women have done this? Wow.’ But this is just what’s meant to happen for me at this time in my life and our lives.”
It’s the day after her ELLE cover shoot and with her impossibly crystal-clear blue eyes dancing, James recounts the experience of being on set. “I didn’t know what to expect in terms of my body and what it would look like so it was beautiful how we did a lot of sheer and created a lot of shapes that way. It was definitely different shooting pregnant, but it was nice to see those photos... I’ll have those forever.” Smiling through the lens, she’s a picture of life and wellness, comfortable in her own skin and radiating a kind of hard-won happiness that speaks of strength, resilience and quiet ferocity.
The hidden beach shack location on Sydney’s Northern Beaches was especially relevant for James, given she and Myles were based in the area for the year he played for the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles. Theirs is a whirlwind love story more suited to a Home And Away storyline than real life, the pair meeting when James was just a 19-year-old cutting her teeth in Sydney and marrying only a year later. They’ve been on the move ever since, with James admitting she functions better when they’re not in the one place for too long. (“So long as we’re together, I don’t really mind.”) A voyeuristic scroll through either’s Instagram accounts shows a couple clearly besotted. In their short time together, they’ve had more thrown at them than most. “I was extremely lucky. I got through what happened to me and a lot of people don’t,” she says of her cancer battle. “For Nate and me, it was our first real challenge as a couple and it was hard and not nice, and not glamorous and very confronting.” (When James eventually had to shave her head during treatment, Myles was there to film the moment.) “But at the same time, life’s not going to be perfect and we are so much better because of it.”
With 32-year-old Myles now signed to the Melbourne Storm, James is set to have the baby back in her home town, surrounded by family. Her parents, interior architect Charis and EX-AFL player Stephen, who himself fought nonhodgkin’s lymphoma in 2012, have been a constant source of encouragement and strength since James was an eight-year-old declaring she wanted to act. On her inside wrist is a tattoo of the initials CTC for her mum’s name, her own and her younger sister Candy. “When I met my husband, he was covered in tattoos, and I was like, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t mind getting a tattoo.’ I was on Home And Away at the time with Samara Weaving and she was like, ‘I’ll get one with you.’ Nate and I had just started dating and he took Sam and myself down there and we got tattoos – she got an elephant and I got this. It was so painful I went white, but I love it and now my sister has it. Then we took my mum to an LA studio and she got it!”
“I WAS EXTREMELY LUCKY. I GOT THROUGH WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T... IT WAS HARD, NOT GLAMOROUS AND VERY CONFRONTING”
“IT KICKS LIKE CRAZY, AND IT FREAKS ME OUT BECAUSE I’M LIKE, ‘OH MY GOSH, I ACTUALLY HAVE SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME, I’M GROWING A HUMAN’”
Los Angeles pops up multiple times in the conversation and it’s clear James isn’t ruling anything out in terms of her acting career. As far as her ambitions go, nothing has changed. This year saw her dip her toe in with roles in country-comedy You’re Gonna Miss Me and action-drama series We Were Tomorrow, and 2018 will see the release of fantasy-romance-thriller
Harmony alongside fellow Australian actors Jacqueline Mckenzie and Les Chantery. With her determination, it’s easy to see James following in the footsteps of other Home And
Away-turned-hollywood stars such as actor and mate Chris Hemsworth. And while navigating the role of working mum in a notoriously unaccommodating industry is a challenge, it’s one she’s up for. “It’s really wonderful when you see women like Teresa Palmer working so much and having their children [by them] or breastfeeding on set... that’s really inspiring for me. I think it’s different for everybody, but my career means a lot to me and there are still a lot of things that I haven’t achieved.”
For now though, James is unapologetically of the “what is meant to be will be” mentality. “Things are meant to happen the way they’re meant to happen. You can get very fixated on going from A to B, to C to D, and things happening exactly the way that you planned it in your head. For me and for us, it just hasn’t happened like that at all and that’s actually really cool. It’s made me think that it’s okay that didn’t quite work out, because I know that something else is going to happen. It’s meant to be. As frivolous or airy as that might sound, I think it’s a really nice way to be because it takes the pressure off. We have goals and things that we want to achieve in life and they’ve remained the same throughout the whole time, but now I’m not so set on having to achieve something at a certain time or in a certain way.”
Motherhood, however, is imminent, and it’s refreshing to hear James hasn’t ticked a thing off her nursery list. Like most mothers-to-be, she’s full of incredulous joy at the process. “It was kicking the other day, it kicks like crazy, and it freaks me out because I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I actually have something inside of me, I’m growing a human.’ It’s really bizarre, and my husband just thinks it’s incredible that a woman can grow another human being,” she laughs.
Despite intense interest in the birth, one thing the couple are able to keep for themselves is whether they’re having a boy or a girl, chiefly because they won’t know until they’re holding the new arrival in their arms. Either way, it’s clear nothing will faze James from here on in. “I think that with everything that has happened and that I’ve been through, and that I will continue to go through, just going with it is so important.”