Inside Lily James’ idyllic childhood as the daughter of a musician and actress – until a devastating family heartbreak hit when she was 18 and drama school became her ‘lifeline’

She has grow to be a single of the most sought soon after actresses in Hollywood after soaring to fame playing Lady Rose MacClare in Downton Abbey.

And since starring on the beloved ITV series Lily James, 35, has long gone on to perform the major girl in movies these as Mamma Mia!, Yesterday, Cinderella and even took on the part of Pamela Anderson in Disney collection Pam & Tommy. 

The roots of her accomplishment commenced with her grounded, idyllic childhood in Surrey as the little one of an actress and singer – just before tragedy struck and her father died when she was just 18.

Lily is the daughter of actor and musician Jamie Thomson and actress Ninette and grew up with her mother and father in Esher and her two brothers. 

Her renowned connections also go all the way back again to her grandmother – who was the actress Helen Horton – who famously performed the voice of Mother in the blockbuster movie Alien. 

But driving Lily James’s increase to stardom and glitzy connections lies deep household heartache.

The loss of her actor father, Jamie Thomson – who died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 54 – was the very low stage of the then 18-calendar year-old drama student’s daily life just as she experienced been recognized into the prestigious Guildhall college.

Tragically, he never observed his gifted daughter gentle up the monitor.

The younger actress modified her identify from Lily Thomson to Lily James to honour her beloved father and explained his demise turned her into the workaholic she is today.

The reduction of her father arrived on the heels of the death of his brother, Bruce, who had motor neurone condition, and of her grandmother, actress Helen, who had returned to the US to care for her son.

‘Drama university was a lifeline for me, it saved me,’ she has earlier mentioned just after the decline. 

‘I found it extremely nurturing – I just clung on. I will hardly ever quit striving to be improved at what I do.’ 

She also explained to the Day by day Telegraph journal in 2019: ‘A lot of my family died in the space of 5 many years.

‘But I am glad that my grandma died in advance of my dad, because if she had seen that…’ 

In the interview she also reported that landing the position of Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh’s reworking of the fairytale for Disney was a delight – until she had to engage in a scene in which she is told that her father is dead.

‘I couldn’t truly go there,’ she said at the time. ‘Sometimes there was a coldness to me all over that. I was attempting so tough to maintain on to a thing.’

Lily added that even while it has been a lot more than a ten years given that her father died, she finds it tough to speak about her hero.

‘He was so inventive and so bold. There was so a great deal daily life in him. He was good,’ she stated.

‘Sometimes when I discuss I come to feel calm, I feel completely at peace and quiet. But there are other periods when I sense extra on edge.’

Lily has previously opened up about her father’s youth and his tries to make it in Hollywood.  

She claimed in an interview in 2019: ‘There have been durations of his everyday living when he went at it difficult, like in the ’70s when he was an actor residing on Sunset Boulevard with a musician friend, when every person was getting acid.’

Then in his early thirties Jamie was involved in a car crash and was still left with significant scars above his experience and his shoulders.

Lily explained of the alter it experienced on his occupation: ‘The scarring was so negative, he abruptly went from a passionate guide to a gangster.’ 

Increasing up in leafy Esher and her education and learning at Arts Academic College in Tring just before she subsequently went on to research acting at the Guildhall Faculty of Music and Drama in London, graduating in 2010.

She has a shut bond with her mom – with the pair frequently holidaying collectively, when she sometimes appears at premieres with her.

Ninette looked glamorous in a black costume as she supported her daughter Lily at the Stockholm premiere of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Once more! in 2018. 

In Oct 2022 Lily also shared a touching write-up of her and her mother Ninette on Instagram.

She took to social media to write-up a image of her and mum walking hand-in-hand in a field.

Lily appeared very easily stylish in a pair of khaki eco-friendly trousers and a dishevelled white shirt, with her tresses swept up in a messy bun.

Her mum looked similarly modern in a cream shirt and darkish trousers, shielding her eyes from the glare of the solar behind a pair of sun shades. 

Captioning the sweet shot, she wrote: ‘Mother Nature’.

Lily also has a shut connection with her elder brother Charlie and young brother Sam Thomson and she posed in a sweet snap with them as she celebrated her 35th birthday about the weekend.

The attractiveness celebrated her birthday with her nearest and dearest with a boozy night at the ‘world’s most exclusive’ personal members club in London on Friday.

Giving a glimpse inside the lavish night, Lily posted photographs of the group as they sipped cocktails and sat down to the personal dinner.

Lily seemed amazing in a £10,000 outfit at members’ club, Apollo’s Muse, which is at the back of Bacchanalia in swanky Mayfair.

After her father’s demise Lily has long gone on to make him happy with a stellar performing occupation.

Her tv credits include enjoying Ethel Brown in the 2010 BBC output of Richmal Crompton’s Just William, although she played Poppy in the fourth sequence of ITV’s Key Diary of a Contact Woman in 2011 in advance of landing her position in Downton Abbey.

Then in 2016, she returned to tv in the 2016 BBC historical drama series War & Peace, playing Natasha Rostova. 

She also starred in her second key movie, as Elizabeth Bennet in the motion-horror movie Pleasure and Prejudice and Zombies, a parody of Jane Austen’s Delight and Prejudice.

Then in 2018 James starred as the younger edition of Meryl Streep’s character, Donna Sheridan, in the sequel to Mamma Mia!.

In 2019 she starred opposite Gillian Anderson in West Conclusion production All About Eve. 

Following, in late 2020, she was forged to participate in Pamela Anderson in the miniseries Pam & Tommy for Hulu in which she remodeled into the siren with four hours in prosthetics and make-up each day. 

She will future be witnessed in the upcoming indie film Greedy Persons.

The actress was 1st hooked up to the undertaking in May of 2022, when Deadline uncovered that she had joined its solid.

Greedy People today will be centered on a police officer who is tasked with investigating a murder and the unexpected discovery of a significant sum of funds in a sleepy town.