Approaching Lost

Fate helped Evangeline Lilly find way to ‘Lost’

by Nikki on March 17th, 2006

From MSNBC:

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. Even at this early stage, stardom seemed foretold. Until Lilly, unhappy with acting, bailed out.

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!”

Never mind the pay was a fraction of what she made before. Her new plan fit perfectly with school (she was studying international relations). More to the point, she didn’t like modeling and acting in commercials. It felt like a meat market. Demeaning.

Still, her agent kept pressing her to try for roles in TV shows or films.

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.”

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