biography of Lily James

Ibrahim22

May 22, 2025 - 12:40

May 29, 2025 - 12:43

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James in 2017
Born	Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson 5 April 1989 (age 36) Esher, Surrey, England
Alma mater	Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2009–present
Relatives	Helen Horton (grandmother)

Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson

(born 5 April 1989), known professionally as Lily James, is an English actress. She studied acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and began her career in the British television series Just William (2010). Following a supporting role in the period drama series Downton Abbey (2012–2015), her breakthrough was the title role in the fantasy film Cinderella (2015).

James went on to portray Natasha Rostova in the television adaptation of War & Peace (2016) and starred in several films, including the action film Baby Driver (2017), the period dramas Darkest Hour (2017), The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) and The Dig (2021), the musicals Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) and Yesterday (2019), and the sports drama The Iron Claw (2023). Her portrayal of Pamela Anderson in the biographical series Pam & Tommy (2022) earned her nominations for a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Early life and education

Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson was born on 5 April 1989 in Esher, Surrey, the daughter of Ninette Mantle, an actress, and James "Jamie" Thomson, a musician. She has two brothers, one older and one younger. Her paternal grandmother, Helen Horton, was an American actress. Her maternal grandmother was French, and fled her village near Paris because of the Nazis, later marrying James' grandfather, a minister in the Royal Air Force.

After finishing her studies at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire, James went on to graduate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London in 2010. Shortly thereafter, she signed with Tavistock Wood management in London

mini bio

Lily James was born Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson in Esher, Surrey, to Ninette (Mantle), an actress, and Jamie Thomson, an actor and musician. Her grandmother, Helen Horton, was an American actress. She began her education at Arts Educational School in Tring and subsequently went on to study acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, graduating in 2010.

After learning that another actress in the Actors' Equity Association had the name Lily Thomson, she choose the stage surname of James to honour the memory of her father, James Thomson, who had died a few years earlier.
She is a mezzo-soprano.
Her grandmother Helen Horton provided the voice of "Mother," the Nostromo space tug's computer in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979).
Graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in London, England, with a bachelor of arts honors degree in acting in 2010.
Is a distant relative to her Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) co-star Meryl Streep. Although the two actresses don't share a scene together, James played a younger version of Streep's character.
She is a sixth cousin of U.S. President George Bush through her American grandmother. Lily's four-times-great-grandfather, Stephen Horton, was the brother of the president's four-times-great-grandmother, Sarah Horton (their parents were Comfort Horton and Joanna Wood). Lily is thus a sixth cousin, once removed, of the president's sons, President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush.
She is the daughter of Ninette V. A. (Mantle) and James Stewart Thomson. Her father was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Scottish father, James Hamish Thomson, from Inverkeithing, Fife, and an American mother, Helen Horton, who lived in England with Lily's grandfather. Lily's mother was born in Wegberg, Germany, to an English father, William Eric Mantle, who was a Christian minister, and a French mother, Marinette R. Touzet.
Counts True Romance (1993) as one of her favorite films.
Graduated from the Arts Educational School, Tring Park, in Hertfordshire, England, in 2008. In sixth form, she studied the musical theatre course curriculum and was elected head girl of the school.
She originally auditioned for the role of Anastasia Tremaine, one of the stepsisters, in Cinderella (2015) before being cast in the the title role.
She has the same birthday (not the same year of birth) as her on-screen mother in Cinderella (2015), Hayley Atwell.
She was in a relationship with actor Matt Smith from 2014 to late 2019.
The only time she has acted out giving birth in a movie was in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). She has also acted out giving birth in the miniseries Pam & Tommy (2022).

Film

Year	Title	Role
2012	Chemistry	Ines
	Wrath of the Titans	Korrina
	Broken	Older Skunk
	Fast Girls	Lisa Temple
2013	The Silent Treatment	The Girl
2015	Cinderella	Cinderella
2015	Burnt	Sara
2016	Pride and Prejudice and Zombies	Elizabeth Bennet
	The Exception	Mieke de Jong
	The Tale of Thomas Burberry	Betty
2017	Baby Driver	Debora
2017	Darkest Hour	Elizabeth Layton
2018	Sorry to Bother You	White Detroit (voice)
	The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society	Juliet Ashton
	Little Woods	Deb Hale
	Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again	Young Donna Sheridan
2019	One Red Nose Day and a Wedding	Miranda
	Yesterday	Ellie Appleton
	Rare Beasts	Cressida
2020	Rebecca	Mrs. de Winter
2021	The Dig	Peggy Piggott
2022	What's Love Got to Do with It?	Zoe Stevenson
2023	Finally Dawn	Josephine Esperanto
2023	The Iron Claw	Pam Adkisson
2024	Greedy People	Paige Shelley
2024	Relay	Sarah Grant
2027	The Angry Birds Movie 3 †	TBA (voice)
TBA	Untitled Cliffhanger film †	Naomi Cooper
TBA	Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo †	TBA

soruse ; wikipedia ...... imdb

biography of Lily James