Born Nicole Evangeline Lilly in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, the middle of three sisters in a Christian, working-class Canadian family, she was raised in Abbotsford, British Columbia, by a grocery store manager dad and childminder mum. At college, she was spotted by Ford modelling agency on the street, but she turned them down, keeping the number. A while later, she thought again and ended up landing small parts in TV shows, the kind which come with credits like “Girl in cinema”, “Benton’s girlfriend” or, even better, “Party guest – uncredited”. Then in 2004, with next to no relevant experience (and no acting training), her foot fitted a glass slipper, landing the role of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 survivor Kate Austen. She arrived in Hawaii where she still lives today with her partner, Norman Kali. She met him on the show when he was working as a production assistant, and their two sons, to shoot the pilot. Initially, she loved it. “I told my parents, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe they paid me to do that. I would do that for free!’ It was so much fun.” After becoming an overnight hit, with US audiences of 12 million and millions more worldwide, suddenly, it wasn’t fun anymore. “Living in paradise and becoming a famous TV star seems like a dream come true,” she reflects. “Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t. None of those things were my dreams. It was a struggle, and I had a very hard time adjusting to life as a public figure. I was isolated and alone, far from home, not knowing anybody and being one of the few single people on the cast.” She couldn’t even bear to watch herself. “I wanted to curl up in a ball and die because I thought I was terrible.” She found herself at odds with the production, a discord which manifested itself in her doing her own hair and make-up. “I just thought this is ridiculous,” she recalls. “Why would I have somebody else do something for me that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself? Not to mention that I found it very overwhelming to have people touching me all day. I wasn’t used to it. It’s a tolerance you build up over the years as you learn to be an actor and you get used to people pulling, poking, rubbing, grabbing, adjusting and constantly touching you. For me, at the beginning, that was intolerable. I couldn’t handle it, so I said, ‘No, no, no, I’ll do it myself’. “I did my own hair and make-up in 15 minutes, because I was supposed to be on a deserted island. I should have bedhead and no make-up! I figured I could get a couple of extra hours sleep in the morning. If I was in the hair and make-up trailer, it was two hours!” She did many interviews at the time and most US journalists commented on her “potty” mouth. But was she really so sweary? “I did have, and probably continue to have, a bit of a foul mouth,” she admits with a laugh. “Back then I would unabashedly not hide it from journalists as a rebellion, as a way of saying I’m not going to be the prim, proper, prissy actress you want me to be. I’m going to be me. I’m going to be the blue-collar girl I am. Over the years, I came to a place of realising that there’s nothing to be gained by throwing my roots in people’s faces.” “Before Lost aired, I was sat down on numerous occasions,” she continues. “I was specifically instructed on how to behave with the press and in the public eye. That not only pissed me off, but it really hurt my feelings because I felt I was being told who I was and how I am naturally is a liability; you need to suppress it, hide it, put it away because otherwise, you will damage this thing we’re building together. At the time I would have told you it pissed me off. In hindsight, I can see that what it really did was break my heart. I would sob into my pillow at night because I felt I was a social leper and that the way I was wasn’t acceptable. “Remember I had a sense of I’m not going to do that; I’m not going to be fake. I refuse to be fake, I refuse to conform to expectations of what a Hollywood actress is supposed to be. I don’t believe in ‘supposed to be’. I think we should all be individuals, all the different colours of who we are.” Things reached a crisis at the end of season one. There were tearful conversations with her parents, who told her to ‘tell them all to f*** off, come home and eat chicken noodle soup’. Touching though she found their support, she ignored them, knuckled down and committed to the project. By season three, she let them do her hair and make-up. By the end, she had a Golden Globe nomination and a SAG Award. And when it was done? “When Lost finished, I said I was done and I’d never act again,” she answers. “For two years I retreated into obscurity. I had a baby. Then, when my baby was one month old, my partner got a call. They said Peter Jackson has been trying to contact your wife for two months and nobody in Hollywood can reach her. Do you think you could get the message to her he would like her to play an elf in an upcoming Hobbit movie? And although I really didn’t want to be acting, I wanted to play an elf for Peter Jackson more.”
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