Career

Television

Lilly's acting career began when she was discovered by a Ford Modeling Agency agent while walking the streets of Kelowna, British Columbia.[11] She took the agent's business card but did not immediately pursue acting. She eventually called and the agency landed her several roles in commercials and non-speaking parts in the TV shows Smallville and Kingdom Hospital.[10][12][13]

Lilly at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival

Lilly was encouraged to audition for ABC's Lost by a friend and she did not expect to get cast. As the secrecy campaign prevented the auditioning actors from accessing the full script, forcing them to read short scenes and only know the basic premise of people surviving a plane crash on a tropical island - which reminded Lilly of The Blue Lagoon - she thought Lost would "at best be a mediocre TV show".[14] Around 75 women auditioned for the part of Kate Austen. Writer and co-creator Damon Lindelof said that he and executive producer and co-creator J. J. Abrams "were fast-forwarding through a tape, and he saw her and said, 'That's the girl.'"[15][16] The character almost had to be recast, as Lilly had trouble acquiring a work visa to enter the United States.[17] Her application was finally accepted after nearly 20 tries and she arrived in Hawaii for filming one day late.[17]

Lost ran for six seasons from 2004 to 2010.[18] It was one of the top shows on ABC's primetime schedule during its run, winning one Golden Globe Award and ten Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2005, and was ranked the top-rated TV show of the decade by IMDb.[19] Lilly appeared in 108 of the show's 121 episodes, and her character, Kate Austen, was the show's female lead. Entertainment Weekly voted Lilly one of its "Breakout Stars of 2004."[20] In 2006, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Drama.[21] Robert Bianco of USA Today praised Lilly's performance in the episode "Eggtown", saying that it was almost worthy of a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series nomination.[22] In 2007, Lilly's portrayal was voted #1 Sexiest Woman on Television by TV Guide and made FHM's Top Sexiest.[23] Evangeline was voted one of People Magazine's '50 Most Beautiful People'. After shooting the final episode of Lost, Lilly said she was considering taking a break from acting to focus on her charity and humanitarian efforts.[24] She told Vulture, "I consider acting a day job — it's not my dream; it's not my be-all, end-all."[25] She says she uses her high-profile roles to further her humanitarian efforts, not to achieve stardom.[26]

Film

In 2008, Lilly appeared in the Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker.[27] She and the rest of the cast won the Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast and the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble. Lilly followed this role with a leading part in psychological thriller film Afterwards.[28] In 2010, Lilly stated her intention to focus on children's book writing[29] and on feature film roles.[30][31]

On May 11, 2010, Lilly announced on The View that she places writing and being a mother as top priorities, but she likes acting as a day job and she will continue acting when possible.[32] Lilly took short retirement and was not in contact with hollywood at all.[33] In 2011, she appeared as Bailey Tallet in Real Steel.[34] Despite having turned down a number of film offers, she traveled to Los Angeles to get the part after director Shawn Levy sent her the script.[35] Levy said: "She's magnificent to look at, she's soulful, and she's sexy. I needed someone who you believed had grown up in a man's world. Bailey needed to have a strength and a toughness that was not at the expense of her being womanly."[36]

In 2012, Lilly was cast as the Mirkwood elf Tauriel in Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit.[37][38] The character, which does not appear in the original book by Tolkien, was created by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh as the head of the Elven guard who wields a bow and two daggers as weapons. Lilly, who had been a fan of Tolkien's books since she was 13,[39] underwent training for swordplay and archery, as well as in the Elvish language for the role.[39][40] In 2015, Lilly played Hope van Dyne / Wasp in the superhero film Ant-Man,[41][42] and later reprised her role in the sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Marvel's first movie to feature a female hero in the title.[43] Lilly will return alongside Paul Rudd in Avengers 4 (2019).

Literature

Lilly holding a copy of her children's book, The Squickerwonkers, at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2013

In June 2010, Lilly announced on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson that she would be writing a children's book and recited several excerpts.[44] Her literary inspirations are children books authors like Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey.[45]

On July 18, 2013, Lilly debuted the book, titled The Squickerwonkers. The release event was held at the San Diego Comic-Con, where she attended a book signing for the work in addition to providing a reading performance. Lilly has stated that the idea for the book first came to her when she was 14 years old. The foreword to the book was written by director Peter Jackson. She described the work as "a graphic book series designed for children", stating that the book is about a young girl who joins a group of characters she described as "this family, the Squickerwonkers, and they're strange outcasts who all have very particular vices".

Lilly has stated that future books will each reveal a new Squickerwonker character and unique vice, which will eventually become the undoing of the character.[46] The illustrator for the book is Johnny Fraser-Allen of Weta Workshop, a New Zealand-based concept design firm that worked on films including The Hobbit. Lilly stated that the goal was to "make a book that we would like to have read as children and that we would still enjoy as adults today".[47]

Personal life

On December 20, 2006, an electrical problem set fire to her house in Kailua, Hawaii, destroying the house and all of her possessions while she was on the set of Lost.[48] Though she lost all of her belongings, she said that the fire "was almost liberating, I'm in no hurry to clutter up my life again".[49]

Lilly was married to Canadian Murray Hone from 2003 to 2004.[50] She was also in a relationship with her Lost co-star Dominic Monaghan from 2004 to 2009.[51] In 2010, Lilly began a long term relationship with Norman Kali. She gave birth to their first child, a son named Kahekili (Hawaiian for "the thunder"), in 2011.[52] Their second child, a daughter, was born in October 2015.[53][54]

She works with non-profits such as the GO Campaign.[24] In 2009, Lilly auctioned off custom lingerie in support of Task Brasil, "a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the lost street children of Brazil by providing them secure housing".[55] In 2010, she auctioned off three lunches in Vancouver, Honolulu, and Los Angeles to help widows and orphans in Rwanda, a country she has made numerous trips to as part of her charity work.[56] Afterwards, in 2012, Lilly auctioned off a Hawaiian hike to raise money for the Sierra Club.[57]

Lilly received wide-scale media attention for stating in a 2014 interview with The Huffington Post: "I'm very proud of being a woman, and as a woman, I don't even like the word feminism because when I hear that word, I associate it with women trying to pretend to be men, and I'm not interested in trying to pretend to be a man."[58][59][60]

Filmography

Lilly at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 21, 2008

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2003	Stealing Sinatra	Model in Commercial	Uncredited[citation needed]
	The Lizzie McGuire Movie	Police Officer
	Freddy vs. Jason	School Student Next to Locker	Uncredited[12]
2004	White Chicks	Party Guest	Uncredited[citation needed]
2005	The Long Weekend	Simone
2008	The Hurt Locker	Connie James
	Afterwards	Claire	French title: Et après
2011	Real Steel	Bailey Tallet
2013	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	Tauriel
2014	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
2015	Ant-Man	Hope van Dyne
2017	Little Evil	Samantha Bloom
2018	Ant-Man and the Wasp	Hope van Dyne / Wasp
2019	Avengers 4		Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001-2004	Smallville	Extra	4 episodes; uncredited[12]
2003-2004	Tru Calling	Extra	Uncredited[12]
2004	Kingdom Hospital	Benton's Girlfriend	Episode: "Heartless"
2004-2010	Lost	Kate Austen	Main role (108 episodes)

Video game

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2018	Call of Duty: Black Ops 4	Savannah Mason	Voice[61]

Awards and nominations

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Year	Association	Category	Nominated work	Result
2004	Satellite Awards	Best Actress - Television Series Drama	Lost	Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Actress on Television		Nominated
2005				Nominated
	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series		Won
	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama		Nominated
		Choice TV: Female Breakout Star		Nominated
		Choice TV: Chemistry		Nominated
2006	National Television Awards	Most Popular Actress		Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Actress on Television		Nominated
	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama		Nominated
		Choice TV: Chemistry		Nominated
2007	Golden Globe Awards	Best Actress - Television Series Drama		Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Actress on Television		Nominated
	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama		Nominated
2008	Saturn Awards	Best Actress on Television		Nominated
	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Drama		Nominated
2009	Saturn Awards	Best Actress on Television		Nominated
2010	Teen Choice Awards	Choice TV Actress Fantasy/Sci-Fi		Nominated
	Gotham Awards	Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast	The Hurt Locker	Won
	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture		Nominated
2014	MTV Movie Awards	MTV Movie Award for Best Fight	The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug	Won
	Critics' Choice Movie Awards	Best Actress in an Action Movie		Nominated
	Empire Awards	Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
	Kids' Choice Awards	Favorite Female Buttkicker		Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
2015	Kids' Choice Awards	Favorite Female Action Star	The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies	Nominated
	Saturn Awards	Best Supporting Actress		Nominated
			Ant-Man	Nominated
	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Summer Movie Star: Female		Nominated

[ Source: Wikipedia ]