Evangeline Lilly

“I've not worked with Martin Freeman. I've hung out with him, but I've not worked with him.”

“When I act, I come away drained. When I write, I come away energized.”

“I'm a very stubborn woman and I'm from a very stubborn family of headstrong women. I have sisters, so the women rule the coop in my house.”

“'The Hobbit' didn't include female characters at all and was a very linear story, a book for children, really.”

“If I went for too long without writing, I would start to feel like something inside me was dying.”

“I love getting older! I really believe that a woman doesn't reach her peak until her 40s.”

“I seem to be landing really great locations on a lot of my work. I hope that continues, knock on wood.”

“By rights, I should be an out-of-work actress because I just don't want it as badly as some people want it.”

“'Why are we here?' 'What is our purpose? 'Is there an afterlife?' 'Is there a God?' 'Is it all about science?' Those are big questions, and usually, TV is a little scared to go there.”

“In high school, people wanted to find the worst in me.”

“I am an opportunist. When opportunities come, and I see them serving my grander goals in life, I take them.”

“When I got old enough to date, I realized that Valentine's Day is just a commercial marketing scam to make men feel bad. So I let my boyfriends off the hook.”

“We decided to have the baby at home because we wanted it to be a natural birth, and it turns out that it was 30 hours of natural. Eight hours of pushing - that's the part that men don't understand. Women go, 'Oh, dear, oh, dear God, eight hours of pushing?' And the men are like, 'Okay, eight hours of pushing.'”

“The people on my mum's side of the family are atheist intellectuals who are ueber-proper. My dad's side of the family are missionaries who are more comfortable sitting around in sweatpants than they are in a five-star restaurant. But those two influences converged in my life.”

“I really believe that a woman doesn't reach her peak until her 40s.”

“There are so many reasons why, for me, writing is superior to acting. One of them is anonymity. Writers can live relatively normal lives.”

“A creative project is a moving target. You never end up where you start.”

“I love to dance. Don't get me started, because you will never get me to stop.”

“I'm a pretty skeptical person, and I'm a realistic person.”

“I say no to photographs. When people take my picture, I feel like they've taken a piece of me, and I can't get that back. It's soul-draining.”