Nicole Evangeline Lily (born August 3, 1979) is a Canadian actress and writer in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Her widely acclaimed role as Kate Austen's first lead role in the ABC series Lost (2004-2010) earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series and earned her a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2008, she played Connie James (2008) in the Oscar-winning war film Hertlock and in the science fiction film Real Steel (2011).
Lily played Taurel in the Hobbit films, appearing in the Battle of Smaug (2013) and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Since 2015, she has played Hope Van Dane/Wasp Woman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starring Ant-Man (2015), Ant-Man and the Hornet (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). She will re-star in Ant-Man and the Hornet: Quantum Madness (2023).
Lilly is also the author of the ongoing children's book series The Squickerwonkers (2013–present), which is planned to include two nine-book series.
< h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="24" > early life</h1>
Lilly was born on August 3, 1979 in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. She was raised in British Columbia by her mother (a product manager) and her father (a home economics teacher). She has an older sister and a younger sister.
Eli Lilly graduated from WJ Mouat Secondary School in Abbotsford, British Columbia; She plays soccer and was vice president of the student council. [6] At university, she was a waitress who worked "changing oil and grease in a big rig truck" and was a flight attendant who paid her tuition for Royal Aviation. Her interests in humanitarian causes and world development led her to major in international relations at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="29" > occupation</h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="30" > TV</h1>
Lily's acting career began when she was discovered by Ford Modeling Agency while passing her time in Kelowna, British Columbia. She took her agent's business card, but didn't act immediately. She eventually called, and the agency put her in multiple roles in the advertising and non-speech sections of the TV shows "Superman Prequel" and "Kingdom Hospital." She also participated in video game news and commentary on the gaming TV channel G4TV.
Li auditioned for ABC's Lost with the encouragement of her friends and did not expect to be cast. The secrecy movement meant that audition actors could not see the full script, could only read short films, and only knew the basic premise of people surviving plane crashes on tropical islands. This reminds Lily of Blue Lagoon, which she considers "a mediocre TV show" at best.
About 75 women took part in Kate Austin's audition. Author and co-creator Damon Lindelof said he and executive producer and co-creator JJ Abrams "... Fast-forwarding through the tape, he saw her say, 'That's the girl!' The character almost had to be recast because it was difficult for Lily to get a work visa to enter the United States. After nearly 20 attempts, her application was finally accepted, and she arrived in Hawaii a day late to shoot.
From 2004 to 2010, Lost aired for six seasons. It was one of ABC's premiertime shows, winning a Golden Globe Award and ten Primetime Emmys, including outstanding episodes in 2005 and being named the highest-rated television show of the decade by IMDb.
Lily's age ranges from 25 to 31, with 108 episodes appearing in episode 121, with her character Kate Austen as the show's heroine. Entertainment Weekly named Eli Lilly one of the "Breakthrough Stars of the Year 2004". In 2006, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series.
USA Today's Robert Bianco praised Lily's performance in the episode "Egg City," saying it was almost worthy of being nominated for outstanding actress in a primetime Emmy Award-winning drama series. In 2007, her portrayal was named #1 Sexiest Woman in TV's TV Guide and achieved FHM's Sexiest.
Evangeline was voted one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" by People magazine. After filming the final episode of Lost, Lily said she was considering taking a break from acting to focus on her philanthropic and humanitarian work. She told Vulture: "I think acting is a daily job – it's not my dream; it's not all I have, the end result. She said she used her high-profile role to advance her humanitarian work, not to make a name for herself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="40" > movie</h1>
In 2008, Lily starred in the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker. She and the crew won the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Ensemble Actor and the Washington, D.C. Film Critics Association Award for Best Ensemble. She followed the character as the lead role after the psychological thriller. In 2010, she expressed her intention to focus on children's book writing[29] and feature film roles.
On May 11, 2010, Lily announced at The View that writing and becoming a mother were her top priorities, but she enjoyed being a "daily routine" and would continue where possible. She retired briefly that year and had no contact with Hollywood. In 2011, she played Bailey Tallet in Real Steel. Despite rejecting many film offers, she traveled to Los Angeles to get the role after director Shawn Levy sent her the script. Levy said: "She looks beautiful, she's affectionate and she's sexy. I need someone you think grew up in a man's world. Bailey needs to have a strength and tenacity, not at the expense of her femininity."
In 2012, Lily played The Dark Forest Elf Torrell in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of JRR Tolkien's Hobbit trilogy. The character, which did not appear in Tolkien's original book, was created by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the leaders of the elven guards who wield bows and arrows and two daggers as weapons. Lily has loved Tolkien's books since she was 13 years old,[39] trained in swordplay and archery for the character, and used elven language. In 2015, she played Hope van Dyne/Wasp Ant-Man in the superhero film, and the role of Ant-Man and Wasp in the Resurgence later (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).
She will work with Armie Hammer and Gary Oldman in the crisis directed by Nicholas Jarecki.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="48" > literature</h1>
In June 2010, Lily announced at Craig Ferguson's late-night show that she would be writing a children's book and reciting several excerpts. She has said her literature was inspired by children's book writers such as Roald Dahl and Edward Gorey.
On July 18, 2013, Lilly launched a book called The Squickerwonkers. The distribution was held at The San Diego Comic-Con, and in addition to providing a reading performance, she also participated in the signing event for the work. Lily says the idea for the book first came up when she was 14 years old. The foreword to the book was written by director Peter Jackson. She described the work as a "series of picture books designed for children" and called the book about a young girl who joined her as "this family, Squickerwonkers, they are strange outcasts, they all have very specific vices."
Lilly says future books will reveal a new Squickerwonker character and unique vices that will eventually be the character's destruction. The book was illustrated by Johnny Fraser-Allen of Weta Workshop, a New Zealand concept design firm that has worked on films such as The Hobbit. The goal, Lilly says, is to "make a book that we want to read as children and that we still enjoy reading as adults today."
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="53" > personal life</h1>
On December 20, 2006, her house in Kailua, Hawaii, caught fire over electrical problems, and when she was on the set of Lost, the house and all her possessions were destroyed. Although she lost all her belongings, she said the fire was "almost liberating and I wasn't in a hurry to make my life chaotic again".
Lily married Murray Horn from 2003 to 2004. From 2004 to 2007, she also developed a relationship with lost co-star Dominic Monaghan. In 2010, Lilly began a long-term relationship with Norman Kali. She gave birth to their first child, a son, in 2011. Their second child, another son, was born in October 2015.
She is a Christian who says her religious beliefs influenced her visit to the Philippines at the age of 18.
Lilly works with non-profit organizations such as go campaigns. [24] In 2009, Lilly auctioned custom lingerie in support of Task Brasil, "a non-profit organization dedicated to helping lost street children in Brazil by providing them with safe housing". In 2010, she auctioned three lunches in Vancouver, Honolulu and Los Angeles to help widows and orphans in Rwanda, where she traveled several times as part of her philanthropic work. Then, in 2012, Eli Lilly auctioned off a Hawaiian hike to raise money for the Sierra Club.
On March 16, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lilly refused to self-isolate and said on Instagram that it was a "#businessasusual" and that she valued freedom in her life, which drew criticism. On March 26, Lily apologized for her remarks, calling them "dismissive, arrogant and mysterious." Lilly currently lives with her father, who has stage 4 leukemia.