Evangeline Lilly stays grounded as fame takes wing
After declaring an early retirement from acting in 2011, she’s poised and flying high in “Ant-Man and the Wasp.”
Evangeline Lilly knew she’d eventually fly as the Wasp. But equal billing in the “Ant-Man” sequel? That was a surprise.
“I knew (Hope Van Dyne) would get the suit at the end of the first film, and I was obviously very jazzed about that,” says Lilly by phone. “But we didn’t know if (a sequel) would come to pass.”
Lilly, 38, calls 2015’s irreverent Ant-Man origin story “a happy little success,” earning $180 million — a modest take compared with the gigantic hauls of films such as this year’s “Black Panther” ($699 million) and 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” ($333 million).
So when they were a month or so away from shooting the sequel, Lilly got a shock. “I got sent a PDF photo in an email of the (double-billed) title card. And that’s how I found out.”
What’s more surprising, frankly, is that Lilly is even in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Stung by the intense spotlight that came with fame after her run as Kate Austen on TV’s “Lost,” the actress famously declared an early retirement from acting in 2011. Lilly never lived in Los Angeles; she was raised in British Columbia, Canada, and launched her career by taking bit parts in Vancouver while attending college. In the post-“Lost” years, she has made a life in Hawaii with her partner, Norman Kali, and their two children (now 2 and 7).
But the offers kept coming. Two years after going off the grid, Lilly got a call from Peter Jackson, offering a hard-to-pass-up passport to Middle-earth as an elf in his “Hobbit” films.
When Marvel dialed her up, “I realized, ‘You know what, this might keep happening,’ ” she says. “There is a very good chance I will be fortunate enough to continue to be given these opportunities to do these big films and to be in the spotlight. And I either need to draw a hard and fast line in the sand right now and say ‘I’m out and I’m never doing this again, no matter how cool the project is that comes along’ — or I just need to make my peace with it.” Lilly chose the latter, and her entire stance on fame has shifted. Yes, Lilly is still private (the actress continues to live in Hawaii when not working) but today she’s less guarded, more willing to engage with fans on social media. In “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” which makes heroes out of bug-size humans, Lilly dons a powerful winged suit in a quest to rescue her mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) from the submicroscopic Quantum Realm. In doing so, Hope takes her right-
“I want to demystify stuff. Something I really want to get out there, especially for young women: I’m wearing a corset under that (Wasp) suit. It’s really important to me that I point out to young women that it’s fantasy.”
ful place next to Ant-Man, who also wears a suit designed by her scientist father (Michael Douglas). Paul Rudd says his often-bumbling Scott Lang recognizes that “Hope was born for this. This is the family business. She should be in the suit, she wants to be in the suit, and is very capable.”
The #MeToo and Time’s Up movements took root as Lilly was squeezing into her Wasp suit and the timing, she says, was not lost on her.
“Ant-Man and the Wasp” “became a whole other thing, for me, personally,” she says. “It all kind of came to the fore for me through those constant news feeds that were more and more upsetting. ... I felt the weight of the responsibility and really wanted to do right by this moment.”
Lilly says in her early 20s she managed to avoid the casting couch — but she remembers meeting Harvey Weinstein as “Lost” was launching. “I was ushered over to his table; that felt very much like I was a geisha girl,” she says. “I had been warned that he was a creep.”
She accepted one meeting with him to discuss future opportunities, but recalls making sure it took place in public with others present.
How has the industry changed for women after the scandal?
“I noticed a dramatic difference when I came back for reshoots (on “Ant-Man and the Wasp”). A marked, noticeable difference (in treatment on set) ... but I’ll never really know why,” she says.
In her own life, Lilly continues to pull back the curtain. On Instagram, she speaks about everything from her politics to how she eats and works out.
“I want to demystify stuff,” she says. “Something I really want to get out there, especially for young women: I’m wearing a corset under that (Wasp) suit. It’s really important to me that I point out to young women that it’s fantasy, it’s fun and it’s an ideal, but, like, my waist isn’t that teeny-tiny. I don’t have a Waspy waist.”
Her secret sauce for sanity in the spotlight is simple: Lilly keeps her young family in the hive.
“I’ve seen too many families in Hollywood fall apart. And I refuse to allow my job to be the reason that my family falls apart,” she says, explaining her decision to pull her son out of school and hire a tutor during her six-month “Ant-Man and the Wasp” shoot in Atlanta last year. “So we’ve just decided to make the more difficult, slightly more awkward choice and always stay together if I’m going to be away for any long measure of time.”