Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly
Nicole Evangeline Lilly is a Canadian actress and author. She won a Screen Actors Guild Award and received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Kate Austen in the ABC series Lost. She is also known for her roles in films such as the psychological thriller Afterwards, the war film The Hurt Locker, and the sci-fi sports drama film Real Steel. She played an Elf, Tauriel, in the fantasy adventure series The Hobbit and Hope van Dyne in the...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth3 August 1979
CityFort Saskatchewan, Canada
CountryCanada
Money is the longest route to happiness.
I've had to find my sanity.
I consider acting a day job - it's not my dream; it's not my be-all, end-all.
Originally, I wanted to do humanitarian work. I actually feel that getting into acting, which fate has led me to, is my window and path into humanitarian work. I always said I want to do something important. And I feel this work is what's helping me get there.
If I were to live in Africa, serving the poor, the number-one thing I'd miss wouldn't be running water or electricity - it would be style... being able to get dressed up and feel beautiful.
I eventually want to come back to Canada, to disappear, have nobody know me, and just be a writer and do what I want to do.
A month and a half after my first audition, I won the role on Lost.
My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life. My heart is in helping people and in the less materialistic side of things, but there's the side of me that's more polished. If I were to live in Africa, serving the poor, the number-one thing I'd miss wouldn't be running water or electricity—it would be style...being able to get dressed up and feel beautiful.
I am kind of prudish and I have very strict standards about how I present myself. But one of the things that I've always stood by is that women are beautiful and sexy. We shouldn't be afraid of that. [But] we need to make sure that we present that beauty and that sexiness in a way that says we are in control of our bodies. We're strong, we're classy, we're beautiful, powerful beings to be reckoned with, not victims.
I was a good student, I was good at soccer, I was vice president of the student council, I was a pretty girl.
I always wear something slightly masculine.
I didn't grow up in a home that glorified Hollywood. We didn't watch TV. We didn't have a lot of magazines around.
I'm a very stubborn woman and I'm from a very stubborn family of headstrong women. I have sisters, so the women rule the coop in my house.
The world is full of opportunities, and I want to try as many as I possibly can.