Evangeline Lilly says she has brain damage after fainting and falling on a boulder at a beach in Hawaii last year.
The “Ant-Man and the Wasp” star kicked off 2026 by sharing an update about her concussion on Instagram. In a video posted Friday, Lilly said that “almost every area in [her] brain is functioning at a decreased capacity” since she “smashed [her] face open.”
“I’m entering into this new year, the Year of the Horse, with some bad news about my concussion,” the “Lost” alum said. “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] I do have brain damage from the [traumatic brain injury] and possibly other factors going on.”
Lilly, who played second-gen superhero Hope van Dyne in multiple installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shared in a Substack post in May saying that she had “fainted at the beach” and “fell face first into a boulder.” She also said she has a history of blacking out and that doctors have been unable to determine why.
In the caption of the video update, the 46-year-old wrote that it is “comforting to know [her] cognitive decline isn’t just peri-menopause” but that it’s “discomforting to know what an uphill battle it will be to try to reverse the deficiencies.”
“Now my job is to get to the bottom of that with the 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 said in the video. “I’m feeling extraordinarily grateful and blessed to be able to play one more day, one more year, on this beautiful living planet … Thank you all for caring.”
Lilly’s onscreen mom and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” co-star Michelle Pfeiffer sent her support in the Instagram post’s comments.
“You are a warrior. Nothing-not even this will defeat you my friend,” Pfeiffer wrote. Actors David Dastmalchian and Alyssa Milano were also among the Instagram well-wishers.
Lilly, who portrayed resourceful plane crash survivor Kate Austen for all six seasons of “Lost” as well as Elven archer Tauriel in two installments of Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” trilogy, announced in 2024 that she was taking an “indefinite hiatus” from acting.
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