Evangeline Lilly Recalls Being ‘Cornered’ Into Nude Scenes on ‘Lost’
Evangeline Lilly is sharing some traumatic memories from her time on the set of Lost.
“In Season 3, I had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt I had no choice in the matter,” the 38-year-old actress, who starred as Kate Austen on the ABC drama, revealed on a recent episode of The Lost Boys podcast. “I was mortified and I was trembling. When it was finished, I was crying my eyes out and I had to go on [to] do a very formidable, very strong scene thereafter.”
Lilly says it wasn't an isolated incident, but after the second time, she took a stand.
“In season 4, 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 recalled. “And so I then said, ‘That’s it, no more. You can write whatever you want — I won’t do it again. I will never take my clothes off on this show again.’ And I didn’t.”
In the years since, Lilly says she's turned down roles involving nude scenes because she doesn't trust she "can be comfortable and safe."
Elsewhere on the podcast, Lilly expressed frustration over the way the show's writers developed her character, saying Kate "went from being anonymous—really having her own story and her own journey and her own agendas—to chasing to men around the island," saying it "irritated the s--t" out of her.
"I did throw scripts across rooms when I’d read them because I would get very frustrated by the diminishing amount of autonomy she had and the diminishing amount of her own story there was to play," she continued. "I wanted her to be better, because she was an icon for strength and autonomy for women, and I thought we could have done better than that."
Lilly last starred alongside Paul Rudd in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Neither ABC or Lost crew members have publicly commented on her claims.