Evangeline Lilly is 'stepping away' from acting: 'This is where I belong'

Evangeline Lilly is setting down her Wasp stingers — at least for now. 

The Ant-Man and the Wasp star, 44, announced in an Instagram post on Monday that she is “stepping away” from Hollywood for the foreseeable future. Alongside her post, Lilly shared a 2006 video of herself sharing her dreams for the future, which included becoming a “retired actress,” starting a family, and focusing on humanitarian work. 

“I am so filled with joy and contentment today as I live out my vision. Praise God, I feel so grateful for my blessings,” Lilly captioned the post. “Stepping away from what seems like the obvious choice (wealth and fame) can feel scary at times, but stepping into your dharma replaces the fear with fulfillment. I might return to Hollywood one day, but, for now, this is where I belong.”

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She concluded, “A new season has arrived, and I AM READY...and I AM HAPPY.”

After appearances on several television shows including Smallville, Lilly got her big break as Kate Austen on the sci-fi series Lost. She would go on to star opposite Hugh Jackman in the 2011 mech movie Real Steel before taking a trip to Middle Earth to play the elf Tauriel in 2013’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and its 2014 sequel, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. 

In 2015, she joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Hope van Dyne in Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man. She would later reprise her superhero role in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, fight in the final battle against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, and return for some more quantum realm hijinks in 2023’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. 

Throughout her career, Lilly has been open about turning down roles that do not interest her — including an instance in which she declined Hugh Jackman's personal invitation to join the X-Men universe to his face.

"I was like, 'No. It doesn't interest me. I'm not interested,'" she recalled on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "I was like, 'I feel like such a dick because I'm talking to an X-Men! The X-Men! And I'm telling him, 'No, that doesn't appeal. Like, what?!' I felt so rude!"

At the time, Lilly noted that she was “very critical” of superhero movies and planned to turn down Ant-Man before her agent encouraged her to watch some of the earlier Marvel films. She added, “When I did, I was like, 'Oh, they're doing something very different and very cool.'"