TORONTO — Evangeline Lilly has become a bona fide TV star playing a feisty castaway on “Lost” and has been at the Toronto International Film Festival this week talking up her starring role in the brooding new movie “Afterwards.”

The glamorous parts are a far cry from the actress’s most-hated career turn: a one-month stint as a flight attendant for now-defunct Royal Airlines.

“(It) was probably my least favourite job ever, and I’ve done some pretty awful jobs,” recalled Lilly.

“I remember the first time we had to do (the demonstration) where you point to the exit signs and do the gas mask thing. … I got the gas mask caught in my hair. So they continued on with the announcement and I (was) trying to untangle my hair.”

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GAYLE MACDONALD
September 10, 2008

Before agreeing to a small cameo in Kathryn Bigelow’s gut-wrenching film The Hurt Locker, Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly picked up the phone and dialled the director’s Los Angeles home. The two women talked for hours – about the Iraq war (grittily explored in this movie), politics and life in general.

A deeply spiritual woman who was raised Baptist and Mennonite, Lilly says she made the call because she had to make sure the tone of the film was in sync with her own moral compass.

“I love the idea of doing this film,” said Lilly, a self-confessed tomboy who is nevertheless dressed demurely in a black dress and white wool coat. “But I told her what I fear is that you and I are in any way on a different page when it comes to our feelings toward this war. I don’t want to be part of propaganda that I can’t stand behind. So we talked for hours,” says the actress, who was born in the small prairie town of Fort Saskatchewan but grew up in British Columbia.

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Fri., Sep. 5, 2008 11:51 AM PDT by Ted Casablanca
At the Towelhead premiere, we also spoke with the fab Maria Bello (more on her latuh), as well as Lost’s Michael Emerson, who’s married to Towelhead’s Carrie Preston. Dude plays the deliciously devilish Ben on the hit show, but, of course, you know that. Don’t you think he’s easily one of the best babes (we use the term liberally, natch) on the sandy nighttime soap, which is about to start back up shortly? Here’s what M.E. had to say:
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Several of the LOST cast members participated in the Stand Up to Cancer benefit yesterday. Photos are in the gallery and you can watch a video clip below.

Her name isn’t exactly a household one, but something tells me that’s all about to change.

In what reps the first major piece of casting for Lost’s fifth season, sources confirm to me exclusively that Zuleikha Robinson has been tapped to play the pivotal role of Ilana.

Couple things: Before you ask, it’s pronounced Zoo-Lika. And she’s done stuff. Some high-profile stuff. Like Fox’s short-lived New Amsterdam, where she played Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s partner in crime. Prior to
that, the London-born actress slaved away as Gaia on HBO’s Rome and, in her first big break, had a regular gig on another ill-fated Fox drama, the X-Files spin-off The Lone Gunmen.

Robinson’s Lost deal calls for her to start off as a recurring player with an option to become a series regular in season 6 (a.k.a. the farewell season).

As I first reported last month, Ilana is described as a European female who possesses great
intelligence but who’s also dangerous as all get out.  She’s alluring and apparently used to getting her own way.

At the time, EW’s Doc Jensen mused that Ilana “sounds exactly like the kind of lethal lady Sayid would fall for. So I’m wondering if the dashing Iraqi is due for a new love interest, yet another lady whose
true motivations will be in question.”

Team Darlton’s not commenting on Doc’s theory, or Robinson’s casting for that matter (this radio-silence thing is going to be the death of me!), so I guess we’ll just have to wait until the new season kicks off in (ugh) five long months to see if he’s right. In the meantime, go ahead and weigh in on Lost’s first big season 5 casting and, while you’re at it, feel free to toss out your own Ilana theories.
Source: EW.com