Evangeline Lilly: How the Star of Lost Almost Wasn't

Evangeline Lilly, who stars as the fiery, troubled heroine Kate Austen on ABC's hit show Lost, is an unlikely candidate for a television icon. Before landing the lead role of Kate, acting novice Evangeline Lilly had barely spoken a line in front of the camera. But, her natural presence and quick intelligence quickly made her a huge star of the small screen; just ask her legions of fans, or take note of her Emmy nomination. To be sure, Evangeline Lilly has helped make Lost a hit, and Lost has helped make Evangeline Lilly a star. But, this down-to-earth Canadian beauty's journey to fame has been anything but a typical Hollywood story.

Evangeline Lilly didn't go looking for the spotlight; it literally came looking for her. A mere four years before she would make her television debut in a leading role on Lost, Evangeline Lilly was stopped on the street by an agent from Ford Modeling. Being picked out of an anonymous crowd and swept into the modeling limelight is the stuff of many girls' daydreams, but when it came true for Evangeline Lilly she was anything but thrilled. In fact, she turned down the offer of representation, and the promise of a modeling career, in order to pursue a future working in international relations. While other future Lost cast members were fighting for minor roles in made-for-tv movies in Los Angeles, Evangeline Lilly was knee-deep in textbooks in Vancouver, studying to work in diplomacy.

With her eyes on the goal of following her calling in IR, Evangeline Lilly began attending the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In order to make money for tuition, she signed with the Ford agency, not as a model but as an actress, and started picking up bit roles in films and television shows. It is during this time that Evangeline Lilly got a few miniscule parts in major projects, including an uncredited appearance in the film Freddy vs. Jason, and a background spot on the hit show Smallville. That's right; although her breakout work on Lost has earned her a nod from the Emmys, she once spent time silently filling screen space behind Freddy Kruger. She also did a television commercial for the "romantic" telephone chat line LiveLinks, ads which still occasionally air on late-night cable channels, much to Ms. Lilly's reported embarrassment. In short, things were slowly starting to happen for her in the acting realm, but it proved to be too slow. Although Evangeline Lilly had considered becoming an actress during her teenage years, this future Lost star now dropped out of the audition race and decided to concentrate on her studies.

Luckily for all the Lost fans out there, it didn't turn out to be a permanent hiatus. In fact, it was only a few years before Evangeline Lilly made her way in front of a camera once again. At the urging of a friend, she decided to give an acting career one last go, and landed her biggest role yet, a guest spot as a corpse on the ABC thriller Kingdom Hospital. The show proved forgettable, but Evangeline Lilly did not. That role eventually helped lead Evangeline Lilly to be cast in ABC's Lost as Kate Austen, the role that has made her a household name.

For many actors, once they get cast in a lead role in a major network show like Lost, it is smooth sailing. However, after she had cleared this hurdle and won the role of Kate, Evangeline Lilly almost saw her big chance taken away from her - by bureaucracy. The show shoots in Hawaii, which means that the Canadian actress had to get a work visa in order to film Lost. Her visa application got tied up in the administrative works, so with only a few days until the cameras started rolling, the producers of Lost had to start considering a last minute recasting. The producers screened over a dozen new actresses while Evangeline Lilly waited for her visa, which arrived just in time for her to make it to Hawaii, albeit a day late. TV history was made, and Evangeline Lilly left the field of international relations behind for good.