Evangeline Lilly is a badass, confident superhero these days.
She’s Marvel‘s first titular female hero in Ant-Man and the Wasp and reportedly joining the Avengers in next year’s as-yet-untitled sequel.
But it turns out we’re lucky she’s still acting at all!
Related: Evangeline Drags Male Superheroes For Complaining About Their Costumes!
Back when America was falling in love with her on Lost, she was apparently being treated horribly on set.
She previously revealed an injury she sustained while working with an unprofessional stunt coordinator.
On this week’s episode of The LOST Boys podcast, the 38-year-old opened up about more tough times on the show — when she was forced to do network nudity she was not comfortable with! She recalled:
“In season 3, I’d had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt had no choice in the matter. And I was mortified and I was trembling when it finished. I was crying my eyes out and I had to go on do a very formidable, very strong scene thereafter.”
And of course the audience had no idea because they just saw the formidable and strong Kate.
Unfortunately that wasn’t an isolated incident:
“In season four, 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. So I then said, ‘That’s it, no more. You can write whatever you want, I won’t do it. I will never take my clothes off on this show again.’ And I didn’t.”
Those experiences have caused Evangeline to say no to ANY nudity on film ever since:
“I’ve been doing this now for 15 years. I’m a little bit better equipped now to know the ropes to not have uncomfortable positions come up now. Because I have had uncomfortable experiences, when I read scripts where it involves nudity, I pass. And it’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with doing nudity, It’s because I don’t trust that I can be comfortable and safe. I’m lucky, I’m in a privileged position because I can be picky. I feel for women who are struggling to come up in the industry and don’t know how to navigate that.”
Does she think it’s any better for actresses now, in the age of #MeToo? Maybe…
“I think that things are in the process of changing. When it comes to women being vulnerable on set when it comes to their nudity though, I haven’t been in the position to know if that has changed or not.”
And that of course is completely her choice.
[Image via ABC/Brian To/WENN.]
