Lily James knows her way around physical transformation, writ large or small. “I just cut all my hair off, although I want to go shorter and shorter,” the actor says, showing off a clavicle-grazing bob during a recent video interview from London. If there was once a sense of industry caution around impulsive beauty changes, James waves it away. “I think life’s too short. You’ve just got to own your own body. Do what you want.” In fact, she says, pointing out my fringe, “I was just contemplating cutting one, and now I definitely want to!”
Such off-camera freedom is made possible, in part, by the sorcery that happens in hair and makeup trailers. For last year’s Hulu limited series Pam & Tommy, slipping into the role of ’90s icon Pamela Anderson involved a three-hour metamorphosis for James. There was the forehead extension embellished with skinny lace brows and a chest prosthetic scaled for her narrow ribcage, plus a square-tipped French manicure, Baywatch tan, and a rotating set of platinum wigs. The resulting portrayal—suffused with her subject’s tender intelligence—earned James a first-time Emmy nomination, and she’s up for a Golden Globe this weekend. “With Pamela, getting to live inside her body, her sensuality, her confidence was really inspiring and life-changing, in a way, for me,” the actor says, reflecting on the project’s ongoing reverb. (Anderson’s own Netflix documentary lands January 31.) “By the very nature of playing [a role] over and over again for months on end, it stays with you.”
Another inimitable take on glamour is staring back at me onscreen: the sculpted glow on James’s face, as only makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury can do. “This opportunity to be one of her muses and work with Charlotte has been so exciting and inspiring,” says James, who positively gleams in the campaign for the line’s new highlighter, launching today. Named the Hollywood Glow Glide Face Architect, this pocket-size wonder is the answer to Tilbury’s own question, as she put it to me recently at New York’s Bowery Hotel: “What do I give my Hollywood stars, and how do I give this to the public?” (To herself too: “I’ve got a major hangover today,” she confessed. “Like, I’m exhausted, I haven’t slept properly, I’ve got jet lag, da da da. But,” she said with a mischievous glint, “look good, feel good—right?”)
What Tilbury’s team came up with is a powder formula that masquerades as a forgiving cream texture, thanks to squalene and other emollients; there are seven subtle tints, ranging from Moonlit to Bronze to rosy Pillow Talk. That makes the highlighter particularly suited to a swath of ages, skin tones, and stylistic moods, whether it be Kate Moss, Jodie Turner-Smith, or whoever else might desire a few well-placed beams. “I’m a light thief,” Tilbury cooed, “because makeup’s all about light.”
The flame-haired Tilbury is her own kind of beacon. “She’s the person you are drawn to in the room. She has the most gorgeous energy,” says James, stationed at Claridge’s for the day, amid a stretch of December snow. She’s grateful to be back in London following a long shoot in Louisiana for Iron Claw, an upcoming A24 movie about a real-life pro wrestling family. James found her way into the Tilbury fold last fall, with a campaign for its cult moisturizer—“which I genuinely am obsessed with,” James enthuses. (What Tilbury loves most about her brand partners is their unabashed fandom: “I’ll sit with them, and they can recount to me the power of Magic Cream.”) The new Hollywood Glow Glide is already as beloved, with James likening its effects to what a master DP can do on set. “Back in the day, that was how these stars looked so glamorous. This highlighter, you put it on your cheekbones, an exclamation on your nose, under your eyebrows, a little dot here on the cupid’s bow of your lip, and here on your jaw,” she says, like a talking paint-by-numbers exercise. “It’s really minimal effort and a huge, huge, effect.”
The titans of classic Hollywood are continual references for James. “All the movies with Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn and Katharine Hepburn, that’s what I grew up watching,” she explains. “I used to watch them at my granny’s house on VCR.” Last summer, production for the upcoming film, Finalmente L’Alba, took James back in time to Cinecittà of the 1950s, with her playing an American actress. She immersed herself in Italian cinema: La Dolce Vita, La Notte. “The women had such power and grace and sexuality—real confidence,” James says, summoning Monica Vitti (patron saint of The White Lotus) to mind. “I got to live in this film and then shoot this campaign, which is really all about recreating that Hollywood glamour.”
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