Lilly thinks surge in female fans ‘great’
TORONTO Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly is enjoying a sense of female empowerment these days, in her career and beyond.
For starters, the Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., native stars in the summer superhero hit Ant-Man and The Wasp, which is the first film in the Marvel cinematic universe with a female character in its title.
“It’s very exciting for me, because suddenly I have a huge uptick in the number of fans who are female,” said the 39-year-old, who plays Hope van Dyne/Wasp in the film.
“It’s great. Historically, I’ve had a more predominantly male fan base and I’ve always thought, ‘How do I get women? I want the women!’” she said with a laugh. “God bless the men, but you get tired of making pictures where you’re attractive and you want to just make pictures where you’re you.”
Lilly also was emboldened recently when revealing a situation in which she felt powerless.
In an episode of The Lost Boys podcast last month, Lilly admitted she felt “basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked” during season 3 of ABC’s Lost, in which she starred as Kate Austen.
After another scene involving her character undressing arose for season 4, she vowed she would never take her clothes off on the show again.
Lost producers J.J. Abrams, Jack Bender, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof recently apologized to Lilly, which she called a “beautiful, empathetic gesture.”
“I think the fact that there’s now an environment where I felt brave enough to say that, which was to answer a question that was asked and not to feel that I needed to hide the truth to protect anybody — and that then after that, instead of there being enormous professional backlash, there being nothing but loving support from the men who ran that show — really says a lot about what #MeToo has done and where it has taken us,” said Lilly, who won a Screen Actors Guild Award and got a Golden Globe nomination for her role on Lost.
“The fact that I felt that I could tell that story says a lot.”