Evangeline Lilly in Esquire

You'll be forgiven if you were unfamiliar with Evangeline Lilly before her role on Lost, ABC's highly addictive adventure-mystery series set on the least tranquil island in the South Pacific. It's the first speaking part for Lilly, twenty-six, a former Sunday-school teacher and oil-change technician from Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, who paid for college by doing background work on local film shoots like White Chicks. Now she's on the shortlist for major movie roles, including one in the long-rumored Wonder Woman movie. We tracked down Lilly in L.A., where she invited us up to her hotel room.

ESQ: You nabbed Lost after only a month of auditioning for roles. How much does every struggling actress hate your guts?

EL: I feel guilty even talking about it. Once I sat beside a woman whose resume was pages long, and when I told her how long I'd been auditioning, you could see daggers coming out of her eyes.

ESQ: Your character has a shady past. What is it about strong, mysterious women that men go for?

EL: I think men don't know what they want, so the idea of not knowing what they're getting makes it a little easier on them.

ESQ: What does a guy get when he gets you?

EL: I think I'm not always what I seem. Most people, when they get to know me, say, "You know, when I first met you..." People initially think I'm a snob because I'm intensely private.

ESQ:Lost thrives on the question of faith versus science. Which side are you on?

EL: I definitely come down on the spiritual side. I think very few things in life happen by chance.

ESQ: The show isn't afraid to kill off major characters. Worried you might be next?

EL: I feel like where they've taken the story, I don't think they're finished with Kate yet.

ESQ: You realize you just painted a target on your forehead.

EL: I know! No one's above it. Got that? Nobody. [Laughs.]

ESQ: So I'm told that the series will end with a scientist informing the survivors that they're part of a government experiment.

EL: I don't think so.

ESQ: Wait, you're saying the Internet is wrong?

EL: I think that would be so unfair to our viewers. They've invested in this idea, and to cop out and make it something as stupid and simple as we're all dead in purgatory or something, I think I'd get up and kick a hole through my television I'd be so pissed off.

ESQ: Admit it, the writers have no idea where this thing is going.

EL: They do! I remember when we were filming the pilot, [cocreator] J.J. Abrams was talking about the idea of a hatch. They told us they had roughly mapped out the first six seasons.

ESQ: Why do you think your character was the first to discover the shower in the hatch?

EL: [Laughs.] Every time I get a script, I go, "All right, where's the Kate nudie scene?" I get so sick of the gratuitous nature of it.

ESQ: Just for the record, we don't.

EL: Well, I do! But it could be worse. They haven't made me go skinny-dipping or have sex with six men on the island.

ESQ: Will we get to see you as Wonder Woman?

EL: I've never even spoken to anyone on the project. People have asked if I had one role I wanted to play, and I threw out Wonder Woman because she was my favorite superhero growing up.

ESQ: You probably had the Underoos, right?

EL: I still have the little shorty shorts.

ESQ: And you still dress up and pose in front of the mirror?

EL: Yeah, with my lasso. No, I'd love to play Wonder Woman because it's a kick-ass role. But the dilemma is whether I want to be part of something that big and commercial.

ESQ: You are aware that Lost is a top-ten show?

EL: True, but right now I can still go grocery shopping and not get mobbed. But when I was in South Africa this summer, I had people asking for autographs, and that scared me.

ESQ: Do you have a particular Valentine's Day that stands out?

EL: My valentine is always my dad.

ESQ:Hmm, a little creepy, no?

EL: A little creepy, but ever since I can remember, he would come home with a box of chocolates, and the card would always say, TO MY LITTLE VALENTINE. When I got old enough to date, I realized that Valentine's Day is just a commercial marketing scam to make men feel bad. So I let my boyfriends off the hook.

ESQ: What's a guy got to do to impress you?

EL: He has to be completely unaffected by my presence. If he wants to talk to me, talk to me; if he doesn't, don't.

ESQ: So you're saying you need your space.

EL: I've had boyfriends complain, "Wait, you don't want to see me?" No, I don't. I just want to hang out by myself. So screw off.

Source: Esquire