Posted on: Monday, October 18, 2004
'Lost' actress no loser
By Robert Bianco
USA Today
By all rights, Evangeline Lilly should look a little lost. After all, her pivotal role of Kate, the heroine of ABC's hit new series "Lost" isn't just her first starring part in a TV series: It's her first major speaking part anywhere.
ABCMedianet And yet to watch this entertaining sci-fi adventure, which strands Kate and 47 other plane crash survivors on a mysterious uncharted island, you'd never guess that acting is something fairly new to her.
"I feel really intimidated and out of my league," says the young actress with a modesty that's as becoming as it is unusual.
Actually, Lilly almost didn't join the league at all.
Three years ago, a representative of a modeling agency spotted her on the street in Kelowna, British Columbia, and tried to sign her up then and there.
Many would have been thrilled with this twist on the Lana Turner Hollywood myth, but not Lilly. She walked away insulted that a stranger would assume she wanted to build her life around her looks.
7 p.m., Wednesday
ABC Her verdict? "I hated it."
She was ready to give it all up until "one of my closest friends said to me one day, 'What are you afraid of? ... I think you're afraid of success.' "
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser Instead, producer J.J. Abrams, who had made a star out of Jennifer Garner with "Alias," offered Lilly the lead.
"It totally floored me," she recalls. "I was just enjoying the auditions so much, I forgot there was an end result."
Lilly was hesitant, so much so that Abrams asked her two important questions: "Are you ready for this, and do you want this? Because if you don't, run away."
She's on the air, so you can figure out her answer.
Still, she says, she wasn't sure she had made the right decision until she met her co-star, Matthew Fox.
She immediately took to him ("He's such a warm person") and she quickly figured out that he could do the heavy lifting.
"I am not qualified to carry a show," says the actress, who is single. "This guy's carried two series ('Party of Five' and 'Haunted'). I can ride on his back a little and let him carry the show, and that was a great relief."
Plus, while she may be an acting novice, she does have one bit of experience Fox can't top.
She once lived in a grass hut in the Philippines while doing missionary work, which helped prepare her, she says, for the physical nature of the shoot on the Hawai'i set of "Lost."
Proud of the show and thrilled to be part of it, Lilly says her biggest surprise was finding that so many of the show-business horror stories she'd heard were untrue, at least for her.
"I was so unprepared. I've been shocked by the warmth and the generosity and the kindness and the giving of all the people. ... I'm still in that enamored stage where I'm in love with the industry."
Let's hope she never finds that love is lost.
At 25, this beautiful Canadian import has become the very model of an overnight success.
When she heard about the casting call for "Lost," Evangeline Lilly hoped at best to get a job as an extra and was surprised to land a major role. Till then, she had done some modeling, performed missionary work in the Philippines and taken acting lessons.
Her plan was to get her degree and become a missionary. But she needed a way to pay her way through, so six months later, she signed with the agency and started doing commercials.
'LOST'
Afraid that her friend was right, she began taking acting lessons and going to auditions, including one for "Lost." She was hoping to land a part as an extra.
Cast and crew film a scene for "Lost" in lower Manoa. The TV series is about 48 survivors of a plane crash on a strange island.
