Lost star Evangeline Lilly is ‘stepping away’ from acting: ‘This is where I belong’

Ant-Man and Lost star Evangeline Lilly is taking a break from acting. Photo / AP

Evangeline Lilly, who starred in long-running TV series Lost as well as Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, has revealed she’s ‘stepping away’ from acting.

Perhaps best known for playing Kate Austen on Lost, Lilly recently shared a video on Instagram explaining why she wants to be “retired” in the next 10 years, reports Variety.

“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 have a family ... I’d like to be writing and influencing people’s lives in humanitarian ways.”

In the caption of the video, which she shared over the weekend, the Ant-Man star wrote: “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 fulfilment.

“I might return to Hollywood one day, but, for now, this is where I belong.”

She concluded by saying that she was “ready” and “happy” about her “new season”.

Lilly starred on the six seasons of Lost from 2004 until the show ended in 2010, earning a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination along the way.

She’s also known for playing Hope van Dyne, aka Wasp, in Marvel’s Ant-Man films alongside Paul Rudd.

She also starred as elf Tauriel in The Hobbit trilogy of films, appearing in the second and third movies The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Evangeline Lilly and Paul Rudd in a scene from Ant-Man and the Wasp. Photo / Marvel

Lilly previously refused an offer from Hugh Jackman to star in the X-Men films, which she revealed during an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast last year.

She said at the time that “[Jackman] was like: ‘Hey, so the X-Men guys are asking me if I would approach you because they know that you won’t talk to anybody. They knew I was working with you and were interested to know if it would ever interest you to do an X-Men thing’ ... I was like, ‘No, it doesn’t interest me. I’m not interested’.”

Evangeline Lilly and Orlando Bloom in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Joss Whedon also reportedly asked her to play Wonder Woman in a film that never eventuated.

Lilly met with the director, but said of the encounter: “My impression, coming away from it, was I had no desire and he could tell.

“It didn’t appeal and there was nothing about the meeting that, like, jazzed me or made me think, like, ‘Oh, I’ve gotta do this’. Nothing clicked.”