Ellie

Interview by Hugo Currie
Photography by Chloe Mallett
Fashion Direction by Ursula Lake

Ellie Bamber is on the move. In every sense.

We hurriedly diverted from an unexpectedly closed café, ending up in Noble Rot in Bloomsbury on a rainy Monday afternoon. There are worse places to be by far. And she’s good company – bright, fun, sharp as a tack. She orders wine – “orange, from Greece – pine-y, funky..you’ll love it”.

She’s rushed over from the East London studio where she was photographed for this issue’s pages, and excitedly shows me the first galley of stills: bold looks, and it’s clear this is a woman who thrives in playing with her many looks. “I get really excited about that. I do really like being greatly changed. I mean, I find it challenging as well. Like – this isn’t me. Acting is easier, photo shoots are way harder.”

And yet she makes it all look easy. As one of the three female leads in Disney+ & Lucas film’s Willow TV series, a sequel to the 1988 cult favourite starring Warwick Davis, her star is seriously on the ascendence.

Tapping the nostalgia of the original film, she’s confident that it will create an army of new fans – “it’s wonderful, really quirky – and funny.” Attempting to get her to open up about her character falls on stony ground – “I wish I could tell you” – but finally she relents just a little. “My character is 19 or so, figuring out who she is, and starting to understand her power as a woman – she goes on a really rich, considerably dramatic journey throughout the series. And what is so good is that at the heart of the film there are three women, characters that are all so interesting and unique, and I think that young girls will be able to find something in those characters to relate to.”

“We shot in Wales and had a four-week boot camp – and I was thinking, why have we got four weeks? That’s a crazy amount of time.  But then when we started, it was everything. Stunts, personal training, rehearsals, the lot. When we started shooting, it was so apparent that we had needed that time because I just don’t think I could’ve done it without that.”

Her first taste of the full Disney experience was in May, at the Star Wars Celebration and Disney D23 expo. “It was a crazy experience, just to walk out on that stage and feel the excitement and the energy from the audience of fans was so, so cool.”

This isn’t her first break by any means. A role in Nocturnal Animals saw her hand-picked by Tom Ford, to star alongside Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhall, and Michael Shannon. The casting process was daunting enough – “I sent a tape, and then heard back that Tom really wanted to meet me. I was like, WHAT! I thought, oh, this is crazy. My other first thought was, what am I going to wear? I couldn’t believe I was doing it. I remember going into his offices and one of the first things he said was – I can tell that you have a great personal style and I just sort of thought, okay, well this is it! That’s fine. I can leave now. See you later!”.

It was Aaron Taylor Johnson and Isla Fisher with whom she shared some of the toughest parts of the filming process. “Aaron was totally careful and respectful, a genuinely nice guy, while Isla was just hilarious, and totally took me under her wing.”

A stand-out turn in BBC’s The Serpent saw her playing Angela Knippenberg in the true crime drama investigating – and ultimately bringing down – the murderer Charles Sobhraj, who poisoned Western tourists on the 1970s hippy trail through Southeast Asia. “I spoke to her and it was really just incredible to be telling that story of an incredibly strong woman who was so brave and intelligent – and subsequently went on to be UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs.”

Forthcoming screen work includes Red, White, and Royal Blue, an adaptation of the LGBTQ New York Times bestseller, alongside Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nick Galitzine, and the protege to Maxine Peake’s Anna Politkovskaya, in the forthcoming BBC drama on the life of the extraordinary Russian journalist, who was murdered in 2006. Growing up, her heroes included Maxine Peake, and she’s blown away by now finding herself now doing read-throughs and scenes with her.

“I don’t necessarily have a plan. I just kind of wanted to keep exploring. I’m really enjoying it. I’ve got like a few things I’m doing next year, which though I’m really excited about, I can’t say anything about.” We argue politely over who’s paying the bill before she heads off. “I can’t believe I’ve had a glass of wine before my PT class. Maybe I should just ‘fess’ up.”

And with that, Ellie Bamber is once more on the move…

Willow airs on Disney+ on November 30th.

Hair by Richard Scorer @ Frank
Make-up by Neil Young at Premier Hair and Make up
Nails by Jenni Draper at Premier Hair and Make up
Ellie wears the brand Joseph throughout the shoot.