The powers that be at “Lost” are apologizing to actress Evangeline Lilly after she recounted an on-set experience at the ABC drama that left her in tears.
“Our response to Evie’s comments this morning in the media was to immediately reach out to her to profoundly apologize for the experience she detailed while working on Lost,” co-creators and executive producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, and executive producers Jack Bender and Carlton Cuse, said in the statement to People. “We have not yet connected with her, but remain deeply and sincerely sorry. No person should ever feel unsafe at work. Period.”
Lilly, who remained a “Lost” regular throughout the show’s six-season run, said on a recently released episode of the “Lost Boys” podcast that she was “basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked.”
“I was mortified and I was trembling, and when it finished I was crying my eyes out and had to go on and do another very formidable and strong scene immediately after,” she recalled.
Lilly said she was tasked to do another nude scene the following season.
“I said, ‘That’s it ― no more. You can write whatever you want, I won’t do it,” the Golden Globe nominee said on the podcast. “I will never take my clothes off on this show again’ ― and I didn’t.”
The “Lost” creators didn’t address another disturbing on-set incident that Lilly said left her with oozing “open wounds” after she was forced to perform a stunt gone-wrong. She described the incident in May and accused the “misogynistic” stunt coordinator at the time of purposefully injuring her after she hesitated.
J.J. Abrams is known to call on the stable of actors from his hit TV shows for his blockbuster films, but Lilly and the director haven’t worked together since “Lost” ended in 2010. She’s since gone on to star in the second and third films in “The Hobbit” trilogy, as well as in Marvel’s “Ant-Man” franchise as The Wasp, aka Hope van Dyne.
“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,” Lilly said on the podcast.
“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.”
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