Evangeline Lilly on The Hobbit’s Tauriel

Evangeline Lilly is a real trooper. She’s also been flexing more than just creative muscle in her past few projects. From Real Steel to The Hobbit, Ms. Lilly is shaping up to offer the best of both worlds. She’s a spot on dramatic actress who can play a warrior any day of the week. A very warm new interview with the actress reveals just this, and also offers more glimpses of her sense of humor.

Celebrating the release of Real Steel to DVD and Blu-Ray, Lilly sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss what drew her to her role in the first place, and offer details on her current character in the two part epic, The Hobbit.

Lilly says it was watching the Darren Aronofsky film, The Fountain, which made her want to work with Hugh Jackman. Even so, she very nearly rejected Real Steel, thinking, before reading the full script, that it was a brainless, heartless, explosive, summer action movie without any substance. She was pleasantly surprised and thinks a lot of fans were, too.

The real scoop, however, came in the form of Tauriel details. This is the name of her elf character, which seems to have been created by Peter Jackson. As it turns out, Tauriel, the Milkwood elf, is the head of the Elven guard. Lilly calls her a “big shot in the army”. The character can wield just about any weapon, but in the film we’ll experience her archery skills and see her using two daggers. Lilly says, one “wouldn’t want to be caught in a dark alley next to Tauriel”.

It makes sense for me that Lilly would find herself in this sort of part. In Real Steel her musculature was really beautiful, and that’s not something all actresses possess. It makes her more convincing in the roles of fighters.

Lilly went on to reveal that there have been talks about a Real Steel sequel, but right now she has about five more months of shooting in New Zealand.