Evangeline Lilly: Why I’m so selective

Evangeline Lilly hopes no one knows her name.

The actress’ biggest movie role to date is as elf Tauriel in The Hobbit franchise.

She might be in one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, but the 35-year-old hopes she can still fly under the radar.

“I’m a bit shy,” she confessed to German magazine Bravo. “That’s why I don’t want to make too many films.

“Sometimes I see colleagues who have five or six films on the go per year. That’s not my goal. You know those actors you see in a movie every now and again and you think are great but you don’t even know their name? That’s who I want to be!”

Peter Jackson’s Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy are based on the classic books by J. R. R. Tolkien. Evangeline had not only heard of the stories before she was approached for the film – she was a massive fan.

“All of them! I grew up with them,” she enthused when asked if she’d read the novels.

“As a child, my favourite were the elves. How funny that I’m one now!

“When Peter Jackson asked me if I wanted to play Tauriel, I went crazy. I was lying in bed, just having given birth to my son, jumped up and screamed, ‘Yes, I would do anything to get this role!’”