Evangeline Lilly wanted to play Leia, should anyone?

Ant-Man and the Wasp star Evangeline Lilly has been involved with some beloved franchises, but she reveals Princess Leia is the role she really wanted.

Everyone knows Evangeline Lilly is doing just fine on her corner of the universe, working for the Marvel industrial complex, but there was a time Lilly had her eye on another holy franchise. Way back when it was first announced J.J. Abrams helm the seventh chapter of the Skywalker saga, not much was known as to when, who or where the franchise would be headed. Lilly, though, had her eye on a specific beloved character from the Original Trilogy era.

"“When J.J. [Abrams] was first announced that he was gonna do his first Star Wars film,” Lilly explained at Fan Expo Boston. “I reached out to his producing partner, for the first time ever since LOST ended, I never requested anything ever before, and I said, ‘I wanna be Leia! Make me Leia!’”"

Some of this seems strange as Lilly expressed she had felt cornered into nude scenes during the third and fourth season’s of Lost. Something to which the Lost co-creator, Abrams says he has tried to reconcile with the star.

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The idea of Lilly playing the iconic character is enough to make one roll their eyes towards the sky for an answer from the Force, even if she has some of the prerequisites required to play the character. After all, her work as Kate Austin in Lost, especially early in the series, conveys her ability to portray the tough-minded, go-it-alone nature Carrie Fisher brought to life.

Obviously, circumstances have changed with the untimely death of Carrie Fisher. Even so, could anyone play the character again? The answer from most fans would probably be an almost unilateral “no.”

Just look at all the venomous back and forth when asked how Marvel should look to recast Wolverine—a large contingency think the character should be treated like Bond and recast over and over until the sun swallows us whole. Other fans, think Hugh Jackman’s claws should be enshrined in a magical museum to our superhero gods.

The truth is it’s too soon to tell. Right now, Leia will be played using archived footage of Fisher, as it should be. We really don’t know where the figureheads at Lucasfilm are concerned regarding anthology films and, in all honesty, it may be time to explore another era.

For now, Lilly will just have to be happy with her small indie credits as The Wasp in all those art-house Marvel pics that no one seems to go to.

Star Wars Episode IX is scheduled to come out in December 2019.