People: Her job may be ‘Lost,’ but Lilly certainly isn’t
To hear Evangeline Lilly talk, her path to stardom on the hit series “Lost” was almost beyond her control.
Perhaps a bit like her character, Kate, and the rest of the “Lost” castaways who – submitting to a grand plan, or was it just bum luck? – crashed at the obscure Pacific isle where the ABC thriller has stranded them.
Granted, Kate was aboard doomed Oceanic Air flight 815 in handcuffs, a fugitive from justice. She was being brought back to the U.S. from Australia to stand trial when the jet tore apart in midair.
Nothing so tumultuous for Lilly.
While enrolled at Vancouver’s University of British Columbia just a few years ago, the Alberta, Canada, native was a budding actress pulling in good money doing TV commercials
Then, in a bizarre display of self-demotion, she happily took work as a movie extra.
“Being an extra, ironically, turned out to be something I loved,” she says with a laugh. “I could go in when I wanted. Do my homework. Read books. Eat their food. Rest. That was my job, and I got paid for it!”
As Lilly tells it, she finally saw the light when a friend observed how “you claim to believe in destiny, and yet you’re ignoring what appears to be all the signs of destiny. Doors are opening for you, but you’re afraid of your own success.”
“That struck a nerve in me,” Lilly recalls, “and I burst into tears.”
In January 2004, she went on the first of a couple dozen auditions.
“By March, I was in Hawaii filming the ‘Lost’ pilot.”
There, to her surprise, she fell in love with acting. But she also learned that, on “Lost,” it wouldn’t just be viewers who were challenged by the mystery. She remembers imploring J.J. Abrams, the series’ mastermind, to relinquish a few more clues: “C’mon, give me a ballpark idea: Am I a fireworks smuggler or a murderer?”
She was part of a cast that also included Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway – both playing characters Kate has had flirtations with – and veteran actor Terry O’Quinn who, as the mystical Locke, declared, “Each one of us was brought here for a reason.”
A slender brunette with a dusting of freckles and a dazzling smile, Lilly is athletic and outdoorsy, which served Kate well. Kate is nobody’s fool.
Nor is the 26-year-old Lilly, even at her most perplexed.
“I feel this year I’ve figured it out,” says the woman who found herself on “Lost,” summing up. “The dust has settled, and I understand the new world I live in. That’s really exciting and reassuring.”
The birthday bunch
“60 Minutes” commentator Andy Rooney is 88. Singer Jack Jones is 69. Actress Faye Dunaway is 66. Singer-producer T-Bone Burnett is 59. Actor Carl Weathers is 59. Actress Emily Watson (“Breaking the Waves”) is 40. Actor-comedian Tom Rhodes (“Mr. Rhodes”) is 40. Guitarist Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne) is 40. Rapper LL Cool J is 39. Actor Jason Bateman is 38. Musician Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters (and Nirvana) is 38.