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Evangeline Lilly - Biography
Birth name: Nicole Evangeline Lilly 2004 marked a stunning year of success for Evangeline Lilly, when Entertainment Weekly dubbed her as the year’s breakout star thanks to the mega-giant series of Lost that is a six time Emmy winner and is the number one reason that ABC rules the network ratings war. Lilly’s Hollywood story is a true rags to riches Hollywood legend. But what was her story that led her to the set of ABC’s biggest hit? Evangeline Lilly was born as Nicole Evangeline Lilly on August 3, 1979. She was raised both Mennonite and Baptist in Fort Saskatchewan an Alberta prairie town that reaches winter weather in subzero temperatures. Her dad worked in produce at Safeway and also a home economics teacher, while her mom worked an Estee Lauder counter and operated a day care out of their home. Lilly also has both an older and younger sister. Just a normal middle-class Canadian family, though you won’t hear her say much about them as her private life is kept, well, private. In a recent interview with Elle magazine, Lilly shed a little flicker of light onto her family life when she reported that her family was poor every day of the year but Christmas, when her dad would take out loans to ensure everyone had presents. Hard to believe this Lost icon grew up without a television. Puberty came late for this starlet, but at age 16 when it did, she became a head-turner overnight. Caught in a juxtaposition of being a tomboy who used to hang with the XY crowd, this beauty girl suddenly found her friends wanting more than a ball hockey teammate. She used to cry herself to sleep at night wishing herself ugly because her old friends only disrespected her and the girls in her high school took her ethereal beauty to mean she was also promiscuous. When she was 18, she moved to a hut in the Philippines to serve briefly as a missionary. She declined a two year long post, but went on to study international relationships at the University of British Columbia so that she could found and run a human rights and world development committee. By the age of 20, her only resume ‘credits’ included her world development work, former missionary, an Air Canada flight attendant, and bilingual abilities in French. Lilly’s first break came upon a Ford Modeling scout’s discovery of her in Kelowna, British Columbia. She initially balked at the notion given her history of disliking the attention her looks sought her. However, she signed with Ford in order to pay for her University expenses but went into acting rather than fashion modeling. It was Ford that put her in a cheesy date line commercial, and she also appeared on Judgment Day. She then appeared as ‘girl against locker’ in the 2003 Freddy vs. Jason, and also in Smallville as an extra as Wade’s girlfriend in a pool hall scene. Her next appearance came as ‘Italian police officer’ in The Lizzie McGuire Movie. Following this, in 2004 Evangeline Lilly added a guest role as Benson’s girlfriend in the ABC Stephen King series Kingdom Hospital to her short list of credits. In 2004 she then hit the world by a storm with her first speaking role in a little show called Lost that ABC executives saw going nowhere after the pilot. At this point, Evangeline Lilly only cared about Lost and how it could get her a work permit for the United States. Days away from production casting producers began re-casting her role until at the 13th hour, one day into production, her work visa arrived and she started earning $80,000 an episode. Upon leaving Canada on a permanent basis, Lilly left behind a fellow named Murray Hone, an amateur hockey player she had married a year before. In true Evangeline Lilly style, this is all we know about this relationship, as she has kept that in her privacy repertoire. Lost is currently slated for six seasons, though ABC executives have hinted that if its status remains where it is today, Lost diehards can probably expect to see more. When Lost became an overnight sensation, she became Entertainment Weekly’s 2004 Breakout Star and placed eighth in the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World. In 2005, she garnered the #2 spot in Maxim’s Hot 100 list, but slipped to a mere #67 in 2006. On December 14, 2006 she received her first Golden glob nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Drama. Following this nomination, Lost characters became released in action figure form for the 2006 Christmas season. Evangeline Lilly is currently living in Oahu, Hawaii where the show is filmed, and she is living with two girls, both whom act as her stand-in on the show. She describes her life as living in a bubble with no television or familiarity with popular culture. She is known for refusing nude scenes, her profane linguistic quality, and for sticking to her Christian roots. She has used her fame and financial resources from this to launch a video called Just Yell Fire, a film dedicated to teaching young women means of rape defense. In the hiatus between her first and second seasons, she visited the less fortunate in Rwanda. This year she has been nominated for Best Lead Actress in a Drama 2007, and Best Actress in a Television Series for the 2007 Saturn Awards. She has also been Punk’d in 2007, and is beginning film production in Afterwards June 2007 which is slated for release next year. In the works for 2010 Evangeline Lilly fans can expect to see her again on the big screen in Magma Suit. |