Evangeline Lilly Details Awful Experiences on the Set of Lost

"In Season 3, I'd had a bad experience on set with being basically cornered into doing a scene partially naked, and I felt had no choice in the matter. I was mortified and I was trembling, and when it finished, I was crying my eyes out and I had to go on do a very formidable, very strong scene immediately thereafter," the actress recalled. "And so, in Season 4, another scene came up where Kate was undressing, and I fought very hard to have that scene be under my control, and I failed to control it again. And so, I then said, 'That's it. No more. You can write whatever you want—[but] I won't do it. I will never take my clothes off on this show again.' And I didn't."

Lilly added that she would handle the situation differently today. "I've been doing this for nearly 15 years, so I kind of know the ropes," she said. "I'm a little bit better equipped now to not have uncomfortable experiences come up." Now, when she reads scripts that involve nudity, she passes. "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," said Lilly, who currently stars in Ant-Man and the Wasp. "I'm lucky. I'm in a position—a very privileged position—where I'm allowed to be picky. I can be picky. I've got enough success under my belt that I can be, and I feel for women who are just struggling to come up in the industry and don't really know how to navigate that."

Working on Lost wasn't all bad, of course, and Lilly particularly enjoyed sharing scenes with Michael Emerson and Terry O'Quinn. "Their immovability in a scene taught me about not bending to make my co-stars comfortable—which I think is a quintessentially female trait, to always try to accommodate and take care of whoever you're with," she said. "But they were never selfish, unkind or egotistical. They were just very strong and talented. They were pros and they weren't going to apologize for what they needed to do to accomplish their scenes."

After Lilly's interview went viral, Lost co-creators and executive producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, and executive producers Jack Bender and Carlton Cuse, apologized to the star. "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," the four men told E! News in a joint statement Thursday night. "We have not yet connected with her, but remain deeply and sincerely sorry. No person should ever feel unsafe at work. Period."

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