ILY JAMES APPEARS TO HAVE IT ALL. AND I DON’T JUST mean the head-turning classic beauty or the rocketing Hollywood career. Those are a good start. I’m talking about a loving, in-demand boyfriend and a local pub that welcomes her warmly. “Ah, it’s Lily and Matt,” says a barman as the actress breezes in to the North London Tavern, where we’ve agreed to meet, hand in hand with her boyfriend of two-plus years, the actor Matt Smith. Smith (who, if you didn’t know for his role as the title character in Doctor Who, you would certainly recognize for his impeccable performance as Prince Philip in The Crown) leaves after we sit down—he has a wrap party for The Crown’s second season that evening. But because James has been shooting her latest film, the WWII-era Guernsey, in Cornwall, the pair has barely caught a glimpse of each other in weeks. She wishes him luck before calling out “Love you!”—a knee-jerk outburst—and then clamps her hand over her mouth and laughs. “Oh god, that’s so embarrassing. Sorry!” Dressed in jeans ripped at the cuffs, a black crop-top, a pair of black suede loafers and with simple gold jewelry circling her neck, wrists and fingers, James could pass for any off-duty twentysomething. Then you look a bit closer and notice that the unbuttoned trench topping the whole outfit is the latest from Burberry (she’s the face of the Burberry Black fragrance). After being drawn in by her alabaster skin—makeup free and f lawless—and her almond-shaped brown eyes, you can’t help but notice that taut waist, the source of much hysteria after the release of Cinderella. No really. Countless articles—analyses, think pieces, you name it— came out after the film, all questioning whether her “tiny waist” disqualified her from being a role model. “There were times when it really got me down because I was the lead character of this film all about kindness and goodness, and all that people seemed to talk about was my waist,” James remembers. “I was like, ‘This is so bizarre; you’re kind of missing the point.’” Despite that bewildering experience, James remains mostly unfazed by the Hollywood obsession with Mattel proportions. “We all have our insecurities and things we struggle with—we’re all human,” she says. “I think it’s frustrating, the unreal aesthetics we aspire to. They’re perpetuated by what we see and the image we give out. That’s why social media frightens me, because it’s this constant putting out of the best version of yourself.” But her emotional resilience and well-adjusted body attitude doesn’t negate the fact that criticism—no matter how unfounded—can sting. “There are still things I remember from the first time I was in the paper. I went through all the Daily Mail comments . . . ‘She’s not even ugly. She’s just plain.’ Or stuff about my acting where I was like, ‘Oh, God.’ I remember being on stage and doing The Seagull. I was doing a scene and thinking of a comment about how bad my acting was. That’s when I was like, ‘That’s got to stop!’”
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