Feeling helpless
Evangeline Lilly says she was ‘cornered’ into doing partially-nude scenes on Lost.
EVANGELINE Lilly (pic) says she felt pressured into filming partially-nude scenes on ABC’s hit fantasy drama Lost.
The Ant-Man And The Wasp star, who played the show’s heroine Kate Austen during its sixseason run, revealed in an interview for The Lost Boys podcast that she was coerced into doing partially-naked scenes for her role, particularly in the third season.
“In Season Three, I’d had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt had no choice in the matter,” she said.
“And I was mortified and I was trembling when it finished. I was crying my eyes out, and I had to go and do a very formidable, very strong scene thereafter.”
Lilly said her discomfort continued into the following season of the show. “In Season Four, another scene came up where Kate was undressing and I fought very hard to have that scene be under my control. And I failed to control it again,” she noted.
“So I then said, ‘That’s it, no more. You can write whatever you want – I won’t do it. I will never take my clothes off on this show again.’ And I didn’t.”
Lilly has not filmed another scene involving nudity since her stint on Lost, a choice she has pointedly made when selecting projects.
“I’ve been doing this now for 15 years. I’m a little bit better equipped now to know the ropes, to not have uncomfortable positions come up now,” she added.
“Because I have had uncomfortable experiences, when I read scripts where it involves nudity, I pass. And it’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with doing nudity. It’s because I don’t trust that I can be comfortable and safe. I’m lucky; I’m in a privileged position because I can be picky. I feel for women who are struggling to come up in the industry and don’t know how to navigate that.”
In the interview, Lilly also recalled her disappointment in the switch from Kate’s status as an “icon for strength and autonomy for women” to being thrust into the middle of a love triangle with two fellow passengers of Oceanic Flight 815: Jack (Matthew Fox) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway).
“I felt like my character went from being autonomous, really having her own story and her own journey and her own agendas, to chasing men around the island. And that irritated the s*** out of me,” she explained.
“I did throw scripts across rooms when I read them because I would get very frustrated by the diminishing amount of her own story that there was to play.”
On a recent stuntwomen panel, Lilly also claimed that a “misogynistic” stunt coordinator intentionally caused her to injure both her arms during a stunt on the set of the ABC series.
“I felt it was him saying, ‘I’m going to put you in your place for standing up to me,’” she said.
J.J. Abrams and Lost producers issue apology
JJ Abrams, Jack Bender, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof issued an apology to Lilly after she claimed Lost pressured her into filming partially-nude scenes.
“Our response to Evie’s comments in the media was to immediately reach out to her to profoundly apologise for the experience she detailed while working on Lost,” reads the joint statement.
“We have not yet connected with her, but remain deeply and sincerely sorry. No person should ever feel unsafe at work. Period.”