Theo James: “I’m ready in the third act”

This interview with Theo James is published in number 13 of Vanity Fair, on newsstands until March 25, 2025.

«The traumas that are part of our childhood do not abandon us, they also accompany us as adults. But each of us reacts differently. The same identical experiences can model people in a totally different way ».

This is this, he explains Theo Jamesthe message of The Monkeyyet another film based on a story by Stephen King, directed by Oz Perkins, an “expert” of horror.

The actor split to play the two twin brothers protagonists of the story, Hal and Bill, whose lives were marked by a demonic toy: a spring monkey capable of causing death and destruction. «Hal has moved away from all the people he loves for fear of involuntarily due to his death, but he also learned to come to terms with his trauma and developed a healthy morality. While Bill has never grown. It has remained a child and the result is that, on the one hand, it is terrified of death, on the other, it has a huge, toxic and very dangerous ego ».

At forty, James is experiencing a sort of Third phase in his careerbegan as for many other British actors with the theater. The very first time on the stage? “At 7 years old,” he says, “I was Herod in a school play. On stage I had a whip and it made me very happy, “he laughs.

After a degree in philosophy that could have brought him elsewhere, the actor had decided to follow his passion and enter the Bristol Old Vic Theater School. Where, among other things, he met Ruth Keney, Irish, an actress too, who married in 2018 and from whom she had a daughter in 2021 and a child who turned a year last September. A lucky encounter, he says, “because facing the whole path together from the beginning, perhaps it is not easy, but it can consolidate a relationship”. That relationship was helpful especially when success suddenly hit him about ten years ago with the film trilogy Divergentwho transformed it into a teen idol. A phase that has left behind with some relief. To land in the third half, which we could define for maturity, thanks above all to TV series like The White Lotus – of which he was one of the protagonists of the second season set in Taormina – e The Gentlementhat director Guy Ritchie took from his 2019 film.

How come a horror, a genre that has practically never frequented?
«Precisely because he has nothing to do with the films I played so far. I also know Oz, the director, for a couple of years and I have had no doubts in the face of the proposal to work with him to an adaptation from Stephen King. But when I read the script, it surprised me and convinced me even more because I also found it fun. The Monkey It is a sort of comedy horror. Reminded me of some films that I loved as a child, like i Gremlins».

Remember the first horror film that frightened her enough not to sleep at the night?
“The Shiningamong other things always taken from Stephen King, he had traumatized but also fascinated. After all, it explores the dynamics of a family that is separated from everything and everyone, in total insulation. And I remember that at 15 I had gone to see at the cinema The Blair Witch Projectthe original version. I had invited a girl and she had fun, while I was sitting there and I made it under fear. To make it short, let’s say that that appointment did not go very well ».

Did you get to meet Stephen King?
“Unfortunately not. Obviously I would have liked it, I am a great fan of his. But Oz, the director, was in contact with him while writing the film and I know that King had the opportunity to see him. Despite being quite different from the story, he liked it very much ».

He had not yet finished the theater school and was already on the set of You will meet the man of your dreams by Woody Allen. It would be said that he didn’t even have time to collect no to auditions like almost all his colleagues.
«Oh no, I received several waste! And it also happens now, it is part of this profession. All my career has been a succession of ups and downs and will continue in the future. The difference is that with age I learned to deal more easily. When I happen to talk to actors in the beginning I always repeat the same thing: “Don’t worry. It will be like being on the Russian mountains all the time. The important thing is to do what you like and continue to be even just satisfied” ».

Other tips?
“It is wrong to compare yourself to others. I say it from experience because I committed that error when I was younger. I was always there to make comparisons between me and colleagues and with the actors who preceded me. But everyone makes history in themselves. Another tip is: make sure you always have people who count in your life and to whom you are tied, because they will keep you with their feet on the ground ».

Is it true that as a young man he was competitive in a way that, in retrospect, finds even irritating?
“It’s like that. I think it was part of my nature, but I changed. I turned forty and today I am more relaxed than once also because, reflecting us, I don’t know how competitive I have helped me. The ambition, the desire to do are one thing, but you must not fall into the trap that I said before, that is to make comparisons between your work and that of others. Over the years I think I have softened, I have calmed down. Or at least I hope. Because if he asked my wife, I am sure he would tell her that it is not so ».

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