Lily Cole is often cast to look otherworldly; we are more interested when she makes a character feel ordinary. Her directness in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus gives a crowded fantasy some welcome human feeling.
Fi1m perspective
Cole gives Valentina a useful plainness in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). While the storytelling keeps getting distracted, she gives us someone whose feelings seem worth attending to. We warmed to Valentina because Cole lets her feelings register plainly amid all the competing inventions. It is a modest strength, but an important one in a fantasy so often absorbed in its own cleverness. She helps make the film worth staying with, though she cannot make its muddle disappear.
That performance followed Polly in St Trinian's (2007), and Valentina was her first leading film role. The step from ensemble comedy to Gilliam's fantasy was substantial, but the tenderness of her performance matters more than the size of the part. Alongside Heath Ledger's Tony and Andrew Garfield's Anton, she is asked to supply emotional weight that the writing has not adequately provided. Gilliam gets something useful from her without giving the cast consistently compelling scenes. Our reservation is with the script rather than with Cole's willingness to make it work.
The later parts have more often been supporting ones, with fantasy and gothic stories making repeated use of her pale, red-haired, otherworldly appearance. Mary Harron cast her as Ernessa Bloch in The Moth Diaries (2011); she played Greta in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012). Those choices make sense, though they risk making her appearance the whole reason for her presence. The title role in the television miniseries Elizabeth I (2017) took her into historical drama.
We would be cautious about making larger claims for her on the evidence of Valentina alone. What we value there is the way she keeps the character approachable while Gilliam makes the story busy. That is a useful quality for an actor whose looks so readily encourage otherworldly casting. More substantial parts would give us a better measure of what she can do. Start with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, allowing for a film that leaves its actors too much to repair.
Biography
Lily Cole is an English actress and model. Born in Torquay, Devon, in 1987, she began modelling as a teenager and appeared on the cover of British Vogue at the age of 16. She was named Model of the Year at the 2004 British Fashion Awards and worked with brands including Alexander McQueen, Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
Cole made her film debut in St Trinian's (2007) and took her first leading role as Valentina in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). Her other screen credits include Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), The Moth Diaries (2011), The Zero Theorem (2013), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and London Fields (2018). She has also appeared in Doctor Who (2005) and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016).
She studied history of art at the University of Cambridge, graduating with a first-class degree in 2011. In 2013 she founded the website impossible.com.
