Evangeline Lilly is having the time of her life, as one of the only two women cast in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug and at last night’s world premiere in Los Angeles called the opportunity “a dream come true.”
The 34-year-old Canadian star plays, Tauriel, a character that is actually not in the J.R.R. Tolkien novel, but one out of director Peter Jackson’s imagination.
Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel is one of the new characters that we will see in the second part of The Hobbit trilogy which opens 10 days from today.
So what was it for Lilly to be spoiled by the largely male ensemble? The actress tells E! News :
“It feels surprising and overwhelming and exciting. I was a massive Tolkien fan. The Hobbit was (…) my favorite book as a little girl and the Silvan Elves were my favorite characters in the book. I had fantasized about being a Silvan Elf when I was a little girl so this is a dream come true.”
Great night last night! Saw #DOS for the first time! Fav part: #EREBOR !!!! pic.twitter.com/RkP6zuUllA
— EL (@EvangelineLilly) December 3, 2013
The Lost star had to wear a long red-haired wig to play the head of the Elven guard and has many of her scenes alongside Legolas, the Elven prince who returns from The Lord of the Rings films and is once again played by Orlando Bloom.
Evangeline Lilly talked about wearing the bright red hair and long prosthetic ears:
“That wig is so heavy. I would get such a headache wearing that wig,” Lilly said.
Speaking about filming with such a large group of men for all those months, Evangeline Lilly seemed to truly enjoy her status as one of two major female characters along with Cate Blanchett.
“The boys treated me like a gosh-darn princess. They flirted with me, they doted on me, they were chivalrous to me. I was in heaven. I was surrounded by gorgeous, charming men every day for a year. It was wonderful.”
#Gown by @Catherine_Deane #bracelet by @MichealJJewelry ( #Kiwi designer!) pic.twitter.com/pp0dZDRK5I
— EL (@EvangelineLilly) December 3, 2013
A source close to the production shared that the men working with Evangeline Lilly in The Hobbit would feed her grapes between takes.
Actor Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins (the hobbit), said at the premiere that cast members gave Evangeline Lilly a hard time as a newbie and “bullied” her.
“We bullied her. She kind of came along and ruined it, because it was a sort of manly band of brothers, and then she came along and insisted on being all girly and all that,” Freeman told ET Online at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday night.
“So we sort of ostracized her as far as possible until we were told off by Peter Jackson. I didn’t even see it as mean. I saw it as our duty to a certain extent. Just to make her really work for it.” he added.
However, the actress dismisses those comments saying the men in the cast couldn’t have made her feel more welcome.
“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Evangeline Lilly smiled when asked if she was bullied on the set of The Hobbit .