Hopelessly lost in Lilly

[Sydney]

Evangeline may be the hit show’s heroine with a dark past but she’s still trying to deal with fame in real life.


EVANGELINE Lilly’s combination of beauty, charm and talent is earning her a reputation as one of the most promising young actresses in Hollywood.

Judging by her package, it’s a wonder how this stunning brunette was not picked up by Hollywood radars all this while.

But though it may seem that she is a model of overnight success, Lilly has appeared on television before – in an episode of Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital to be exact. Unfortunately however, she landed the non-speaking role of a corpse. Not much was heard or seen of Lilly since then.

Luckily, alive and livelier as ever now, people around the world know who Lilly is. To be more exact, most TV viewers are familiar with her role as Kate Austen in the popular TV series Lost. The fictional character of Kate was on Oceanic Flight 815 from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, which later crashed on a mysterious island in the middle of nowhere, along with 47 other survivors.




Kate Austen is not quite the innocent figure she initially seemed to be. In the first season, we learned that Kate has a very dark past. It includes blowing up her own house with her alcoholic and abusive father named Wayne still in it, for the benefit of her mother with the insurance policy she bought earlier, and accidentally killing her childhood boyfriend Tom Brennan while on a runaway chase from the law.

Kate turned up in Australia as a fugitive where she was later caught by US Marshal Edward Mars, the officer who sat next to her on board Flight 815.

Since arriving on the mysterious island, Kate has been involved in most of the major developments. This is due in no small part to her friendship with Sayid, Charlie, and Hurley, as well as her apparent feelings for both Jack and Sawyer, although her relationship with Jack suffers because of her continued manipulation and equivocation.

Now hot in its second season, here’s what Lilly has to say about the show and her character. The interview was done on location in Oahu, Hawaii.

Has the island changed Kate?

I think ironically, the island has softened Kate in a lot of ways. I think that she’s been on the run for so long, and then alone and independent for so long, and able to shelter herself from intimacy and from having people get close to her. Being in that situation now, she’s forced to continually interact with the same people, and she’s forced to be in vulnerable positions with them and get close to them, that she’s been letting a bit of her shell break.

Ana was added this season. How will this affect Kate’s relationship with Jack and Sawyer?

I think there’s an obvious quadrangle that’s forming now, where it used to be more of a love triangle. I have my own theories as to who will be with who, and how it will all end up in the end. But I’m afraid of saying them because I’m afraid that they might come true and then I would have spoilt it for everyone.

What can audiences expect in the second season?

I think the biggest thing that defines the second season is that in the first half of the second season, you get a lot of answers to a lot of your questions. And of course, the flip side of that is you also get a lot of new questions.

I think so far a lot of people in North America have been very satisfied, very excited because they’ve had the satisfaction of having some things concluded and really getting the answers to some of the questions they have been looking for. But that doesn’t mean that the story ends; it doesn’t mean that they’re left hanging, going ‘oh there’s nothing left to find out.’

What has been the most challenging scene you’ve had to perform?

Oh there’re so many! I think that probably for me, one of the hardest scenes that I’ve had to perform was the scene with Kate and her mother in the first season when she meets with her in the hospital. For me, that was really difficult because they wouldn’t give me any idea of what was behind that story.

They gave me no details and nothing to draw from. So, I have this moment where I’m left lost, and I have to be emotionally connected to what was going on. And I have no emotional connection to it because I don’t know what’s going on.

What makes ‘Lost’ different from any other show?

Everything! Everything is different about our show, which is why I think audiences love it, and why we’re so proud to be a part of it. I think that it’s a really heart- wrenching, genuine show. I don’t think the show is about the special effects, or the stunts, or the monster. I think the show is so very much about the heart of people, who we are, and the core of our being, and what relationships are made of, and why relationships happen, and what makes people who they are.

How has the success of the series changed your everyday life?

There is no way it hasn’t changed my everyday life. The only thing that is remotely the same is when I’m completely alone in my bedroom, reading a book, or writing a story, or painting a picture. I love my alone time and always have, but clearly the whole notion of being recognised in public is something that is very new to me and takes some getting used to. I feel like the first season; it took so much getting used to I couldn’t deal with it. I just was really spun out by it. I was very confused and very threatened by it, and had a really hard time with it.

This season, I’ve had enough practice and I’ve been around to many different countries of the world, and experienced it in many different countries of the world, and come to terms with the fact that I will never have anonymity as long as I am on the show. That’s just the way it’s going to be, and I have to get used to that. Now I have, and now it’s become something that I’ve been able to enjoy, and I’ve been able to.

Do fans always come up to you and ask questions?

Well, there’s definitely that aspect of it where I’ll have people who’ll go ‘I know you!’ and I think no, no you don’t. You know Kate, you don’t know me. That’s a weird balance of trying to reconcile those two notions, that I am two people. I am Kate, and I am Evangeline. But because they think of me, obviously, as Kate more than Evangeline, I think people used to always ask ‘what’s the monster, what’s the monster.’ That’s all they want to know. Now people always ask Jack or Sawyer.

What do you do to relax on your days off?

I already mentioned my primary forms of relaxing, which are reading and writing and painting. But I also adore being outside and Hawaii’s the perfect place to relax outside, so I go to the beach and I swim. I’ve been learning to surf, and I kayak and hike. There’re two sides of Evangeline. There’s the really quiet bookworm side of me that likes to be alone and likes to just bury myself in books and art and that kind of stuff, and then there’s the real outgoing butch tomboy side of Evangeline that likes to get dirty, and get aggressive, and use my body. But both of them are so relaxing in different ways.

Catch the second season of Lost weekly on Mondays over AXN (Astro Channel 17) at 10pm.



Facts: Lilly's lost and found

Full Name: Nicole Evangeline Lilly
Place of Origin: Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada
Date of Birth: Aug 3, 1979

- Her father is a Home Economics teacher in Canada. Her mother worked as a cosmetician and ran a daycare centre.

- Attended the University of British Columbia where she attained a degree in international relations.

- Lilly founded and ran a world development and human rights committee at her university. She has lived under a grass hut in the jungles of the Philippines with a missionary group, and has been a volunteer for children’s projects since the age of 14.

- Her ‘Lost’ cast mates nicknamed Lilly ‘Monkey’ because of her ability to climb trees with ease.

- Lilly is fluent in French and loves ice skating, canoeing, kayaking, snowboarding and rock climbing.

- On the heels of her breakout role on ‘Lost’, she was voted one of the Breakout Stars of 2004 by Entertainment Weekly Magazine. She also came in second on Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 list of 2005.

- Her co-star Dominic Monaghan who plays heroin-addicted rock star Charlie is her fianc? in real life!

Courtesy of Malay Mail Online