Camilla James Makes Her Mark

The actress talks love, her career, and that big invasion of privacy.
Camilla James knows she isn't everyone's cup of tea. "My psychic told me once that I'm probably an 'acquired taste'," she tells me over coffee at a quaint little shop in Soho (New York, not London). "You know, maybe that's why; because I have a psychic." Though the words might sound painfully self-deprecating coming from anyone else's mouth, Camilla smiles and laughs while she says it - but that's not self-deprecating, either, only a bit like sunshine. When she leans forward as if to keep what she's about to a say a secret only between us, it's equally endearing. "I don't actually like New York very much," she confesses quietly, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. "But my husband likes it, so I manage." I ask her what it is about New York that she finds less than desirable, and she seems to really consider her answer, a look of serious concentration on her face. "It feels very suffocating, I think. The buildings are too tall and close together and it gets very, very cold. I much prefer feeling like I have the option to roam, and Los Angeles offers that a little more readily."

I find out very quickly that that's simply the sort of person Camilla James is - she likes to feel free, and she very much feels comfortable with herself that way. She has that sort of comfortable demeanor that puts people at ease because, really, at first glance, you might not realise you're sitting across from an actress known for traipsing around Europe with such names as Kendall Jenner and Travis McCrea. Wearing as a dress a button-up that's surely her husband's (director Max Iannello, who she married in a courthouse ceremony in Los Angeles in early May, for those not as up to speed as most) and a pair of Doc Martens with her hair scraped back into a bun, she looks altogether cosy.

For someone who has cut her teeth on and made a name for herself in horror, Camilla admits she's a "scaredy cat". "This is a terrible, horrible thing to admit, but I've never seen Hereditary," she tells me, ducking her head as if in shame. "I've watched a few clips - Jenna [Gonzalez, her assistant of seven years] is an angel and she cut me together bits and pieces of it that she knew wouldn't freak me out but that sort of showcased what Ari was like as a storyteller, and I watched that religiously before we started filming. I just don't have the stomach to watch horror, which is amusing, I know. It's just not a genre that I reach for myself. I can sit through my own films, because I was there and I know it isn't real, but I guess I'm too jittery for much else. My therapist thinks it's because I'm too empathetic - even when it's just someone onscreen, I feel what they feel! Isn't that ridiculous?"

This, too, is the sort of person Camilla is: open and unapologetically so.

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The July issue of Bazaar is on newsstands from 6 June.

Lead photo: Ashley wears Dolce & Gabbana swimsuit. Photographs by Pamela Hanson, styled by Leith Clark. Hair by Kevin Ryan. Make-up by Lisa Houghton.