AIR May 2019

AIR
It’s been a busy year so far for
Lily Collins. The actress, model
and writer kicked off 2019 with
the premiere of the Ted Bundy film
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil,
and Vile at the Sundance Film Festival.
She then stopped off at the Television
Critics Association press tour in
California to promote the TV miniseries
Les Misérables in the US, while
this month, Collins is back in the
spotlight, staring alongside Nicholas
Hoult in Tolkien – a new movie about
The Lord of the Rings writer. “Because
I filmed three things back-to-back last
year, now they are all seemingly coming
out at the same time,” she laughs.
Collins, the daughter of musician
Phil Collins and Jill Tavelman, was
born in England but moved to the
USA before she turned six and,
now 30, resides in Los Angeles.
Initially, she went to University of
Southern California (USC), attending
for Broadcast Journalism before
changing to Communications. Of
her formative ambitions, she laughs
about wanting to be, “The youngest
talk show host – and my love of
journalism comes from my love of
meeting new people. Writing is just
a way I get to explore that, while still
acting. I never wanted to fully close
the door on journalism, even though
I’m following the path of acting now.”
While she is a published author
(more on that later) she diversified into
acting as a career avenue, and parental
nurturing played a role in guiding her
toward a career playing characters.
“My love of acting just came from
when I was younger,” she reminisces.
“My mom and dad would read books
to me before bed, as a lot of parents
do, and I would just kind of disappear
in this dream world in my head, I
guess, about what the movie would
look like. And my dream became
to take people with me on that
journey and become those people.”
Now, in adulthood, she loves
“Getting to learn more things about
myself with the characters that I play,
whether that’s a fairytale princess,
or a literary heroine, or someone that
feels closer to home to me, or someone
who’s completely foreign. I think I
choose characters that are going to
teach me a lot about myself along the
way, and that will challenge me.”
Does she prefer television or movies?
“It’s completely different,” she admits.
“Les Misérables was really great
because it was a six-part miniseries,
so it felt like a mini movie each time
we filmed. Even though we didn’t have
a huge budget, the production value
was just incredible. So everything
felt of quality – almost a film in and
of itself. And I liked that you got to
really live and breathe the character
for longer than a movie would allow.
But I still love movies. So I think
now there’s less of a line between
the two. I think so many actors are
doing both, because so many amazing
characters are on the small screen,
and they have such epic qualities.”
The acting route led to her attendance
at Sundance Film Festival back in
a freezing cold February (not her
first appearance at the Utah-based
event). “It was really fun this year,”
she says. ‘I went up for only one day
of press, dressed really warm, ended
up not needing my jacket as much
as I thought – because when I was
there two years ago, it was like a
white-out snowstorm. So this year
was relatively tame,” she smiles.
“I ran into so many friends and it’s a
very interesting pocket of experience at
Sundance. Everything happens
within such a small space and
everyone’s freezing cold. It’s
camaraderie. And to attend in order
to show a movie that is controversial,
in the sense of its subject matter…
Well, Sundance is an amazing
platform for storytellers to
talk about things that perhaps
other places wouldn’t risk.”
There, she bumped into other old
friends: “People that you see in
passing, and it’s a reunion of
sorts; a very casual festival.
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