Media & Design

Evangeline Lilly: From LiveLinks to Lost

It's pretty funny when someone gets famous and media addicts manage to dig up embarassing (but harmless) nuggets from their past. For instance, if you can get your hands on it, you ought to find a copy of the original version of Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine" (a bootleg often labelled "Purest Feeling") in which Trent Reznor comes across closer to a wussy-Depeche-Mode-wannabe than the angsty-goth-industrial-god that he eventually became.

On a slightly less drastic, but equally entertaining level, Lost star Evangeline Lilly (who plays Kate Austen on the runaway hit for ABC) also has a funny little then-and-now item that surfaced on the 'net in the last couple of months. Apparently, before Evangeline Lilly was stranded on a deserted island with an unlimited supply of revealing tank tops and cute little low rise pants that make her ass look absolutely fantastic, she did some commercials to help pay her way through college. What were these television ads for? "The best place to meet local singles."

Yep, that's right, she did a TV ad for a phone-based dating service that's probably one step above late-night 900-number "telephone entertainment" (read: phone sex) and potentially one step down from the uber-successful Match.com. Evangeline Lilly's past, at least based on this, is not very sordid or controversial... just entertaining (and even admirable, if you think about paying your own way through college).

It's amazing how quickly and efficiently Lost-fandom was able to unearth and distribute a relatively obscure tidbit like the LiveLinks commercial (though an interview with David Letterman probably helped things along). Between fansites, blogs, and YouTube, Evangeline Lilly didn't have a shot of keeping the 30 second television spot under wraps. So, you just think about that before you sign a contract for a hit TV show.

Topics: Evangeline Lilly, Lost, LiveLinks, phone sex, commercial, ad, advertisement, TV, television, date video, Kate Austen, Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor, bootleg, and Purest Feeling.