𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗚 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗬𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗

article5||byrdie

chapter 24.
birdie.
theadora | 18.

The Alchemy of Theadora James.
Byrdie
Oct. 26, 2023

I have one question saved for Theadora James, but she beats me to it just minutes into our Zoom interview. Moments after we bond over the mutually messy state of our rooms (she's in the middle of a massive cleaning spree; I just live like this), she asks me for my star sign. When I answer Pisces, she basically squeals in delight. Thea is a Cancer—a water sign, just like me—and that means we're fated to be best friends. It also means she's a dedicated and sensitive perfectionist—two personality traits that almost seem like prerequisites for someone who had reached mainstream success long before her tenth birthday.

James made me feel at ease from the jump. She Zooms in from her home in L.A., wearing a pink crewneck sweatshirt and black-rimmed glasses. It appears she has zero makeup on, and her dark hair is tucked in a messy bun. She has a gentle, almost musical way of speaking—when she curses about an annoying neighbor doing loud home repairs she literally sounds like a Disney princess—but is as open about the darker parts of her life as she is about her star sign.

When we connected, James had been getting her house in order before flying out to North Carolina later this month to shoot the fourth season of Netflix's Outer Banks.

Like any good Cancer, she has two modes of operation. In one, she's all work, "sleeping four hours a night and drinking more coffee than anyone ever should." That's how it's been for most of her career, juggling multiple projects at once. "Unless I feel like I'm at death's door, I'm not doing enough, according to me," she says, again blaming her sign. "Thats just how I operate, but I know that, long-term, that's not going to be sustainable."

And then, like this summer, there are times when she hibernates from Hollywood to make up for all that time hustling. "I really intuitively [felt] like I need[ed] to just pause for a month or two," she says. "I need to try to actually make a home and put things up on my walls. [I'd] been living in a sort of transitory period now for four years, since I've moved in, really, and I just decided it had to come to an end."

This summer, she spent her downtime attempting to reconnect with her pre-fame self and indulging in her sad-girl tendencies while "laying down and crying or writing a lot." She tried to work through some past trauma, but mostly the break meant listening to her body and resting or listening to her soul and seeing friends. "It's just so funny the wisdom your body and instincts give you to help get you back to ([or] at least closer to) center. Because we're always finding who we are, quote-unquote, forever until we die."

Early on in our chat, James jokes she "can't do a single interview without bringing up the fact that I just have so much unprocessed trauma, so much loss." She says it with a laugh, but trauma and the unraveling of it come up time and again in our conversation.

James has been called "resilient" hundreds of times over the course of her life—by the press, family, friends, and well-meaning Instagram commenters. But despite any good intentions, it always rubbed her the wrong way. "Over time, it started to feel disempowering," she says, adding that it's a word we inequitably pin on women, typically those we see as victims. "It's like, 'So many things have been done to you, but look at what you did with it!' It's this pressure to always be okay, to survive it. I was just so tired of the look people gave me when they said how resilient I was."

At first, "resilient" certainly seems like the right descriptor for James, who has endured far more in 19 years than many of us will in our lives. She mentioned that a day before her Byrdie cover shoot, she had an unexpected health scare and wasn't feeling her best when she arrived on set. Looking at the photos, you would never know it, as she posed in sky-high heels and did backbends in Dion Lee with ease.

But for James, it's less about bouncing back from trauma and more about letting it transform her. "I've never liked the phrase 'bounce back.' I feel like it's okay to let your traumas change you, shape you."

She shares a term a friend taught her that perfectly describes this belief—'alchemical.' It comes from alchemy, the witchy predecessor of chemistry, that focuses on the process of transformation. "It's like, next to resilience, but you are the doer," she says of the distinction. Instead of going back to the baseline of being okay or rebounding to a pre-trauma state, James prefers to roll with how these events changed her. She explains that she likes to imagine every bad thing that happens to her as a talisman in her house, and instead of shoving them away and feeling their presence looming, she eats them and gets bigger and better (like I said, it's a little witchy).

"Instead of having them be something that was done to me; me surviving something, I was now in the driver's seat. I was somebody who had all of these experiences in my nervous system, in my spirit, [and] in my blood, and I could do with them what I wanted. I could release them, [or] I could turn them into something gorgeous."

This theme of transformation and rebirth follows James throughout her life. She experienced more grief by the time she was in high school than many of us do in a lifetime—her father left behind she and her mother when James was just a year old; and her addict mother, who was "neglectful and emotionally abusive" died by overdose when Theadora was 17. Still, she was able to transform that heartbreak into multiple dream roles as leads in franchises such as Disney, Netflix, DC, Hulu, and more—including making it to the big screen with Greta Gerwig's Barbie; this performance winning her a Golden Globe at just 16 years old.

James is a fashion girl through and through—solidified by her new collaborations with Revlon Coach—and references pop icons Billie Eilish and Rihanna as her biggest style inspirations. These days, she prefers not to dress traditionally feminine, instead preferring to hide her figure in baggier clothing. That being said, she enjoyed dipping a toe into some more feminine-presenting looks on the Byrdie cover shoot, wearing a pleated skirt, red lipstick, and chunky doll eyelashes.

According to James, the idea that she knew what she was getting herself into with Disney is "bullshit," but she does acknowledge that, even at 10, she understood that there were certain inherent expectations of a Disney starlet—she compares it to an unspoken dress code, just like any other job might have. She says it's tempting to blame the company, but she adds that she was also just a reflection of what we wanted from women—yes, even young girls—in the early 2010s: ultra-polished, friendly girls next door.

Now, though, she's letting go of any expectations—from fans, society, and herself—of what she has to look or sound like. "[I realized] I can exist in the world and be something that is less universally palatable. And it's not to be controversial—in fact, I think who I am as a person has not really changed at all. It's very funny how a persons style evolution as they grow out of childhood is like this 'revolution.'"

Toward the end of our conversation, she opens up about mental health and the depression she's dealt with her whole life.

James has always been quite private about her unconventional upbringing, but after becoming an adult and grieving her mother's death, she now wants to speak freely about her struggles in hopes of helping others. "I think it's important just to say this: I've had times in my life when I was incredibly suicidal. And I think that needs to be destigmatized. I always think about how much shame and stigma there is around suicide. And if we could be more open about suicide and mental health, I think there would be so many people [who would say], 'Hey, I feel like there's no other option. Can you show me that there are?'"

She's still learning, but after a lifetime of trauma and pain, she's starting to figure things out. Even though she knows it won't fix all her problems, she tries to make sure the basics are covered, like leaving the house and getting some sunlight instead of staying in bed. She makes sure to see loved ones. But sometimes, she just sits in the dark in total silence and breathes "for hours on end," letting stuff come up from the "back shelves of her brain." (For the record, she does not recommend doing this unless you've done extensive therapy.)

The concept of alchemy is more than just her describing word. It really is her guiding light. "I accept this huge blow, I accept this death, I accept this loss, I accept this trauma; it is now a part of me. I do not reject it, because then I'm rejecting parts of myself. And now I go forward and life is bigger and it's expanded. I'm not recommending that you just start trying to pressure yourself to live your life that way because some days, it's still really fucking hard. But it's my mantra," she says.