Lily James Reveals Why She ‘Stops in My Tracks’ Every Time She Watches ‘Alien’

Lily James gets a shock every time she watches Alien — and it’s not due to the movie’s terrifying storyline.

The actress’ grandmother, the American actress Helen Horton, provided the voice of “Mother,” the spaceship’s computer, in the 1979 sci-fi horror film. In an interview with The Independent, published on Friday, Oct. 31, James, 36, shared that she recently rewatched Alien because she was “thinking of Sigourney Weaver as an inspiration for a role I was hoping to play.”

“And I do just stop in my tracks every time, like, ‘My God, this is crazy. That’s my grandma!’ ” she told the outlet of Horton.

Remembering her grandmother, who died in 2007 at age 83, James said, “Her voice was magic. She had one of those beautiful, rich, almost-British voices that all of those iconic movie stars of that time had.”

Speaking with The Independent, James admitted to using the trivia tidbit about Horton’s Alien role while auditioning for 2017’s Baby Driver.

“The only time I’ve really played that card was to impress [director] Edgar Wright,” she said with a laugh. “Like, ‘I don’t know if you know, but my grandmother…’ And being the biggest film obsessive, and having seen everything, he just thought it was so cool!”

James also opened up to the outlet about the early years of her career and how she was “impatient” to tackle different types of roles.

“After Cinderella, I longed for parts that weren’t ‘the ingénue,’ that weren’t ‘the young heroine,’ that weren’t always in historical films,” she explained. When she told this to Cinderella director Kenneth Branagh, he gave her some reassuring advice.

“He just said, ‘Lily, you don’t need to rush. It’s all gonna happen,’ ” James recalled, adding, “But I was so impatient.”

Looking back on that conversation 10 years later, the Downton Abbey star said she knows Branagh, 64, was right.

“As a woman, it happens inevitably — as you grow older, the roles are going to be different. But I also just didn’t need to run away from those young ingénues. Honestly, I’d love to go back!” she told The Independent.

When it comes to her acting career, James said she “craves challenges.”

“I want my life to be an adventure and my work to be an adventure. I want to do things that, on paper, people can’t really imagine me doing,” she explained.

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“I’ve tried to always be brave in the choices I’ve made,” James added of the roles she’s taken on.