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Rave reviews and an Emmy nod for his role as the fiendish Cameron in Season 2 of Mike White’s “White Lotus” may have helped Theo James nudge open a few doors, but he admits he’s still doing plenty of knocking.
Life After the Acclaimed Series Hasn’t Kept Him From School Pickups
After more than a decade in the business, it was easy to see Theo James’ performance in “White Lotus” as career-making. With Cameron, he found a way to make him both charming and wicked, magnetic and repulsive. While he lost the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series to Matthew Macfadyen for “Succession,” we were excited to see what he’d do next. But for James, he was discovering that he still had to compete and struggle to avoid being typecast.
“People think once you’ve ‘made it’, the doors just swing open. But the truth is, you’re always hustling,” he admitted to Mr Porter. “Even with “The White Lotus,” I had to fight for that role. There’s this balance between what you want and what the industry thinks you should want.” While the industry may want him to continue playing characters focused on his good looks, James is eager for meatier material.
He’s Playing Not One, But Two Characters in the Upcoming ‘Monkey’
GettyTheo James
James’ dual roles as twins Hal and Bill in the Stephen King adaptation “The Monkey” see him playing two complex characters. What he found especially intriguing was the different ways the brothers approached mortality. “With the two brothers in the film, Hal is someone who’s accepted death in a way, and that informs his deadpan delivery and understanding,” James told Cineworld. “Bill, on the other hand, is trying to escape death. He’s trying to embrace immortality in a way and he’s afraid of death.”
A lot has been said about The Monkey’s gore and bloodiness, and many have compared it to the “Final Destination” franchise. The difference is the deadpan humor “The Monkey” brings to the table. “…if you’re going to make a story about a toy monkey, you have to make it funny,” James recalled Director Oz Perkins telling him. “But there is something about the blackness of the humour in the film. Death and humour are intimately linked, in a funny way.”
While James admits he found the script hilarious, there was more to it that made him want to be involved. “What drew me in was its darkness,” he recalled to Mr Porter. “There’s this undercurrent of fear, but also this thread of humanity – how people face their own shadows, literally and metaphorically.”
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