After the worldwide Fan Event the other day, Evangeline Lilly stuck around to chat with Entertainment Weekly moderator Anthony Breznican and answer a few more questions from fans at The Grove in Los Angeles. Even if you watched the live event online, you won’t have caught this before.
Lilly had a few interesting things to say, and went into a little more depth about the background of her character Tauriel, and what motivates her. I guess that some of this might be considered background/character movie spoilers so highlight the space below to read a couple of excerpts.
“That’s a great question, “What does she want?”, because that’s what drives every story. And for me, …the most exciting thing about playing this character, was that in a film that was male-driven, and driven by people with selfish aims, that want things for themselves, whether that be their title or their crown or their jewels, or whatever else… Tauriel is one of the few characters in the film who is purely fighting for truth and for justice. And she cares more about those two things than she does about any private, and personal, gain.”
Plus:
“You mentioned something that sort of triggered something in my mind, which is ‘Tell me something about her past’ and a lot of people won’t know because it doesn’t have a place in the film anymore. At one point it kind of did, but a part of Tauriel’s backstory is that she is an orphan. Her parents were killed by orcs. When you understand that, you suddenly understand how and why this girl became the lethal killing machine that she is, how she became the head of the elven guard, how she got taken under Thranduil’s wings, and why she’s so passionate about fighting the evil that is in Middle Earth.”
And on her admiration of Tolkien’s elves:
The elves were always my favourite, and then once I read The Silmarillion, I was completely honoured that I was playing one of these characters, and even more in love with them than I had been before.
You can follow the link below to the EW site catch the full 12-minute Q&A. Thanks to Ringer Eruvandi for the heads-up.
