Evangeline Lilly, who is set to become Marvel’s next movie superhero, is the newest name on the roster of celebrities for FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention.
Convention organizers announced Thursday that Lilly, who will star this summer in Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” had signed on for the convention, set for Sept. 6-8 at the Salt Palace Convention Center.
Lilly, 38, shot to stardom when she was cast as Kate Austen, one of the castaways on J.J. Abrams’ confounding series “Lost.” Lilly appeared in 108 of the series’ 121 episodes, from 2004 to 2010.
In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Orlando Bloom, left, and Evangeline Lilly appear in a scene from "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies." (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Mark Pokorny)
Lilly joined the cast of Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” trilogy in 2013, appearing in the second and third installments. She played a character J.R.R. Tolkien never wrote: Tauriel, a warrior elf who fights alongside Legolas (Orlando Bloom) but starts to fall for the handsome and fierce dwarf Kili (Aidan Turner).
In 2015, Lilly tackled her biggest movie role to date in Marvel’s “Ant-Man.” She played Hope van Dyne, the estranged daughter of inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), who developed the original Ant-Man suit and recruited ex-con Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to wear it.
Lilly, Rudd and Douglas will reprise their roles in “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” opening in theaters July 6. This time, Lilly’s character gets her own supersuit that allows her to shrink to insect size and fight alongside Rudd’s Ant-Man. It’s the first time a Marvel movie has had a female superhero’s name in the title.
Lilly also had roles in the 2008 Iraq War drama “The Hurt Locker” and the 2011 boxing-robots thriller “Real Steel.”
She joins a growing list of actors signed on to appear at the September convention. Others who have committed are (in alphabetical order):
• Robby Benson, who went from ’70s heartthrob (“Ode to Billy Joe” and others) to voicing The Beast in Disney’s 1991 animated classic “Beauty and the Beast.”
• Tim Curry, famous as the “sweet transvestite” Dr. Frank N. Furter in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), but also known for roles in “Clue” (1985), “Congo” (1995) and the TV miniseries “It” (1990) as the evil clown Pennywise.
• Amy Jo Johnson, who played Kimberly, the “Pink Ranger” on the original “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” series.
• Gaten Matarazzo, who plays the nerdy Dustin on the suspense series “Stranger Things.”
• Paige O’Hara, who provided the voice of Belle in Disney’s 1991 version of “Beauty and the Beast.”
• Paul Reubens, famous for his man-boy character Pee-wee Herman in TV and movies.
• Mark Sheppard, who played Crowley, The King of Hell, on TV’s “Supernatural,” and also has appeared on “Battlestar Galactica,” “Medium,” “24,” “Doctor Who” and many other TV shows.
• Brent Spiner, who played the inquisitive android Data on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and four movies, and appeared as a crazed scientist in two “Independence Day” films.
• Karl Urban, who played the warrior Eomer in “The Lord of the Rings,” Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in the rebooted “Star Trek” films, and the evil henchman Skurge in “Thor: Ragnarok,” among many roles.
Passes for FanX are on sale on the event’s website, fanxsaltlake.com.
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