Evangeline Lilly Says ‘Lost’ Stunt Coordinator Injured Her Intentionally

Accidents happens on movie and television sets. Hopefully, the producers and stunt performers do everything they can to keep them from happening, but sometimes stars are injured when performing a stunt and sometimes stunt performers even die when something goes wrong.

You would hope that with the risk already presented by stunt work in movies even when everything is done the right way that stunt coordinators wouldn’t intentionally try to injure someone, but that’s exactly what Evangeline Lilly claims happened to her on Lost at the beginning of her career when she insisted on doing a stunt the coordinator wanted to use a stunt performer for. 

Lilly also made it clear that the accident was no accident, accusing an unnamed stunt coordinator — who she described as “misogynistic” — of punishing her for defying his wish to have a stuntwoman do the stunt. It involved rolling off a thick tree branch high above the ground and hanging on for dear life, though there was no risk of falling because she was safely harnessed to the branch.

Lilly said she asked to have moleskin – a light fabric used to prevent abrasions – wrapped around her forearms, but the coordinator said no. “They’ll see it,” he said, though she was sure it wouldn’t show on screen. So she did the stunt bare-armed – over and over and over again. And each time the rough bark ripped off more of her skin. And after each take, New Skin – a liquid-bandage brand – was painfully applied to the wounds, and then the coordinator would send her back up the tree to do it again and again and again, each time more painful than the last.

“I felt it was him saying, ‘I’m going to put you in your place for standing up to me,’” she said. “It was either cow to his power or hurt myself. I was in my 20s then. Now, I would probably back down.”

That’s pretty messed up. It certainly sounds plausible, though, there are plenty of people who will use an iota of power you give them to lord it over everyone around them. It would be nice if they could be rooted out and stripped of any authority, but even the day manager at Arby’s wouldn’t be above pulling rank on employees.