More on Hannah James, who is Playing Geneva Dunsany (you Lucky Dog, you! ?)

“My mum would implement lots of different stories, that was her way of teaching, storytelling, which is probably why I went into acting,” Hannah said, the hint of an English accent well-evident. “A lot of our learning was through exploration and self-discovery.”

A ballerina from age 2 through 18, trained at the Orange School of Performing Arts, James got her first acting role at age 5, playing a fairy in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” through the former Shakespeare at the Ruins program at Barboursville Vineyards. She continued acting in productions at Four County Players and through Tandem Friends School in Charlottesville, where she attended, participating in plays like “Chicago,” “Rent” and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

Excerpt from WWD interview: “Our set was an hour-and-a-half from my house,” she says. “I would go home on weekends, and sometimes I would bring some of the cast home.”

The show was inspired by real letters from doctors and nurses during the Civil War, and James worked with a historian who specifically studied women during this era. “I read more from diary entries from young girls during the time,” she says. “A lot of women would pour out their real emotions on paper, so I would get into the minds and hearts of them that way.” She even started her own diary, writing in character to use it to further process Emma’s trajectory.

And though the “Downton” comparisons are pouring in, James is quick to caution against their similarities. “It ticks all the boxes of being a period drama in the sense that it has the accents and beautiful clothing and the etiquette that people might enjoy of ‘Downton,’ but our show is quite dirty and gritty in comparison,” she says. “We’ve got blood and gore and cutting through bones.” Source (hey, we have bone cutting on Outlander too!)

Executive Producer David Zucker of Mercy Street said James unquestionably won the role of Emma Green. “The part was one of the more challenging to cast in that we needed a young actress who could credibly play a woman from the south who has an incredible fortitude and strength of being, but could also handle a part that puts her up against some of the leading acting talents working today,” he said in a recent phone interview with the Star-Exponent. Source Good, she’ll need that, to work opposite Sam et al.