Evangeline Lilly revealed on social media that she has brain damage after suffering a concussion last year when she fell into a boulder. The “Lost” and “Ant-Man” star said that “almost every area in my brain is functioning at a decreased capacity.”
“I’m entering into this new year, the Year of the Horse, with some bad news about my concussion,” the Marvel actor said in an Instagram video. “A lot of you asked how I’m doing. A lot of you have inquired about the brain scans that you heard I got. And the results came back from the scans [and] showed that almost every area in my brain is functioning at a decreased capacity.”
“But now my job is to get to the bottom of that with doctors and then embark on the hard work of fixing it, which I don’t look forward to because I feel like hard work is all I do,” Lilly added. “But that’s okay. My cognitive decline since I smashed my face open has helped me to slow down and helped me to have a more restful finish to my 2025.”
Lilly wrote in the caption to her post: “Verdict’s in… I do have brain damage from my [traumatic brain injury]. Comforting to know my cognitive decline isn’t just peri-menopause, discomforting to know what an uphill battle it will be to try to reverse the deficiencies. Thank you all for always asking, for always caring, and for your continued prayers.”
Lilly starred as Kate Bishop on all six seasons of “Lost,” which ran from 2004 to 2010. Her performance earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama series. She’s also well known for playing Hope van Dyne/Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, debuting as the character in 2015’s “Ant-Man” and reprising her in 2018’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” and 2023’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” Lilly also played Tauriel in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” trilogy, appearing in the latter two films “The Desolation of Smaug” and “The Battle of the Five Armies.”
In a social media post last June, Lilly revealed she was stepping away from acting for the foreseeable future and wrote: “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.”
Lilly added in a statement to Variety at the time: “I have actually been on a hiatus from acting for the past three years already (since finishing work on ‘Quantumania’). This time outside of the business has brought me a grounding sense of fulfillment and joy. I could return tomorrow, two years from now or never, but at the moment I am not actively pursuing any work in the industry and am not under any contractual obligations to anybody. I am devoting my time to my humanitarian work and my writing.”
