Inside Lily James' idyllic childhood as the daughter of a musician and actress ... trends now
She has become one of the most sought 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 gone on to play the leading lady in films such as Mamma Mia!, Yesterday, Cinderella and even took on the role of Pamela Anderson in Disney series Pam & Tommy.
The roots of her success started with her grounded, idyllic childhood in Surrey as the child of an actress and singer - 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 parents in Esher and her two brothers.
Her famous connections also go all the way back to her grandmother - who was the actress Helen Horton - who famously played the voice of Mother in the blockbuster film Alien.
Lily James has become one of the most sought after actresses in Hollywood after soaring to fame playing Lady Rose MacClare in Downton Abbey (pictured last week)
But behind Lily's rise to stardom and glitzy connections lies deep family heartache (seen as a child with her father Jamie who died when she was 18)
But behind Lily James's rise to stardom and glitzy connections lies deep family heartache.
The loss of her actor father, Jamie Thomson – who died of cancer in 2008 at the age of 54 – was the low point of the then 18-year-old drama student's life just as she had been accepted into the prestigious Guildhall school.
Tragically, he never saw his talented daughter light up the screen.
The young actress changed her name from Lily Thomson to Lily James to honour her beloved father and said his death turned her into the workaholic she is today.
The loss of her father came on the heels of the death of his brother, Bruce, who had motor neurone disease, and of her grandmother, actress Helen, who had returned to the US to care for her son.
'Drama school was a lifeline for me, it saved me,' she has previously said after the loss.
'I found it very nurturing – I just clung on. I will never stop trying to be better at what I do.'
She also told the Daily Telegraph magazine in 2019: 'A lot of my family died in the space of five years.
'But I am glad that my grandma died before my dad, because if she had seen that…'
Lily is the daughter of actor and musician Jamie Thomson and actress Ninette and grew up with her parents in Esher and her two brothers (seen with her mother Ninette in 2018)
Lily also has a close relationship with elder brother Charlie and younger brother Sam and she posed in a sweet snap with them as she celebrated her 35th birthday last the weekend
Growing up in leafy Esher and her education at Arts Educational School in Tring before she subsequently went on to study acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, graduating in 2010 (seen with her brothers as a child)
In the interview she also said that landing the role of Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh's reworking of the fairytale for Disney was a delight – until she had to play a scene in which she is told that her father is dead.
'I couldn't really go there,' she said at the time. 'Sometimes there was a coldness to me around that. I was trying so hard to hold on to something.'
Lily added that even though it has been more than a decade since her father died, she finds it difficult to speak about her hero.
'He was so artistic and so bold. There was so much life in him. He was brilliant,' she said.
'Sometimes when I speak I feel relaxed, I feel completely at peace and calm. But there are other times when I feel more on edge.'
Lily
