Evangeline Lilly Is ‘Stepping Away’ From Acting

Sad new for Lost fans: Evangeline Lilly is taking a break from acting.

The 44-year-old actress, known for playing Kate Austen on ABC’s Lost and the Hope van Dyne, A.K.A. the Wasp, in the Ant-Man franchise, announced in an Instagram post on Monday that she’s “stepping away” from Hollywood for the time being.

“I am so filled with joy and contentment today as I live out my vision. Praise God, I feel so grateful for my blessings,” she wrote in the caption of the post. “Stepping away from what seems like the obvious choice (wealth and fame) can feel scary at times, but stepping into your dharma replaces the fear with fulfillment. I might return to Hollywood one day, but, for now, this is where I belong. A new season has arrived, and I AM READY…and I AM HAPPY.”

Lilly’s reference to “stepping in to your dharma” could perhaps be a Lost reference to the Dharma Initiative — or she could be referring to the Buddhist meaning of the word, which has multiple definitions concerning the universal truth of reality or a cosmic sense of law and order.

The post itself features a video of Lilly being interviewed on the beach almost 20 years ago, presumably in Hawaii during the filming of Lost.

Also Read: The 12 Best Lost Episodes of All Time

Asked where she sees herself in 10 years, she replies, “I am terrified to admit this to the rest of the acting world, but ideally 10 years from now I’d like to be a retired actress and I would like to have a family and I’d like to be writing and potentially um, you know, maybe influencing people’s lives in a more humanitarian way, as almost everybody in the world now knows, was my intention before I started the show.”

More About Lost Star Evangeline Lilly

Lilly has been acting for more than 20 years. Some of her first credits include small roles in 2003’s The Lizzie McGuire Movie and Freddy vs. Jason as well as Smallville before scoring her breakout role as Kate Austen, a fugitive femme fatale on the run from the law in Lost.

Lilly’s Kate was one of the main characters in the beloved water-cooler show, which followed the survivors of a plane crash who are marooned on a tropical island that turns out to have magic powers — and some quite unfriendly inhabitants. She starred alongside Matthew Fox as doctor Jack, Josh Holloway as con-man Sawyer, Terry O’Quinn as mystic John Locke, Naveen Andrews as ex-military man Sayid, Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim as Korean married couple Jin and Sun, Dominic Monaghan as washed-up rockstar Charlie, Harold Perrineau as the dedicated father Michael, and Emilie de Ravin as new mother Claire Littleton.

During Lost‘s 6 season run from 2004 to 2008, Lilly also appeared in The Hurt Locker and The Long Weekend. After Lost ended, she went on to do major films including Real Steel, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. In 2015, she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the Wasp in Ant-Man opposite Paul Rudd as the title character. She reprised the role in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, in 2019’s Avengers: End Game, and in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

While it’s not clear yet whether her hiatus from acting will be permanent, it seems that Lilly is at a good place in life.

The Lost interview footage in her Instagram post is followed by a video of Maya Angelou discussing the impermanence and ever-changing nature of life.

“Thank you @lost_theothers for digging up this (nearly twenty-year-old) footage of me speaking out my dreams under (what looks like) a full moon. And thank you to @femalepoetssociety for digging up this (much older) footage of the incredible #mayaangelou perfectly articulating how I feel about life,” Lilly added in the caption of the post.

As we face this sad void of Evangeline Lilly content, you can always rewatch Lost on Hulu.

Main Image: Evangeline Lilly at GalaxyCon Columbus in 2023, Wikimedia Creative Commons

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