Evangeline Lilly was left "mortified" and in tears after being "cornered" into a partially-nude scene in 'Lost'.
Evangeline Lilly
The 38-year-old actress became a household name when she portrayed Kate Austen in the mysterious drama series but she admitted she doesn't just have fond memories of her time on the show, recalling two incidents that left her feeling very uncomfortable and resulted in her refusing to flash her flesh on the ABC series for the rest of its six-season run.
Speaking on 'The Lost Boys' podcast, she said: "In season three, 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.
"And 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 thereafter.
"In season four, 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 - I won't do it. I will never take my clothes off on this show again.' and I didn't."
Evangeline also admitted she clashed with producers and writers over the direction the series took her character in, and particularly hated the "obnoxious" love triangle between Kate, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway).
She said: "At the beginning, she was kinda cool, and then as the show went on, she became more and more predictable and obnoxious.
"I felt like my character went from being anonymous - really having her own story and her own journey and her own agendas - to chasing to men around the island and that irritated the s**t out of me.
"And I did throw scripts across rooms when I'd read them because I would get very frustrated by the diminishing amount of autonomy she had and the diminishing amount of her own story there was to play."
And the actress admitted she felt the character deserved "better" because she was such a strong female presence.
She added: "I wanted her to be better, because she was an icon for strength and autonomy for women, and I thought we could have done better than that.
"The great thing about that is that she was flawed, and that's so important.
"If you don't have flaws in the women on screen, then what you're telling the world is that women have perfect if they're going to be lovable. And if you have flawed women on screen who are also icons of femininity, who are also beloved, then it gives us all permission to be flawed."
Tagged in Evangeline Lilly Josh Holloway Matthew Fox