Biography
Date of Birth
18 December 1989, Guildford, Surrey, England, UK
Birth Name
Lily Jane Collins
Height
5' 5" (1.65 m)
Mini Biography
Lily Jane Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is English musician Phil Collins, while her mother, Jill Tavelman, who is from Los Angeles, California, was president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club for three terms. Lily moved with her mother to LA at the age of five, after her parents split up. She is of Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, and German descent.
Her first screen role was at the age of two in the BBC series Growing Pains, in 1992. Collins performed at the Youth Academy for Dramatic Arts as a child, but her main interest was journalism. She graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School, and attended the USC, where she majored in broadcast journalism. She began writing a column ("NY Confidential") for the British magazine Elle Girl in her teens as well as contributing to Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and the Los Angeles Times magazines.
After some early television appearances as a presenter/reporter (for instance, covering the 2008 US Presidential campaign as a host on the Nickelodeon show, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee: Kids Pick the President (2000)), she made a couple of appearances on 90210 (2008) in 2009. She co-starred as the daughter of Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock's characters in the massive box office hit The Blind Side (2009). More dramatic roles followed, and she came to worldwide attention when she played the starring role in Mirror Mirror (2012), following it up by headlining The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) and Love, Rosie (2014).
Trivia
She attended the University of Southern California.
She has hosted several television shows and has been involved in acting and modeling.
She is the daughter of Phil Collins and his second wife Jill Tavelman. She is the younger half-sister of Simon Collins and Joely Collins, who are Phil Collins's children with his first wife, Andrea Collins; and older half-sister of Nicholas and Matthew, Phil's children with his third wife. Simon is a Canadian musician and Joely is a Canadian actress. She is the granddaughter of June Collins and niece of Carole Collins and Clive Collins.
She auditioned for the role of "Snow White" in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) but lost to Kristen Stewart. She later replaced Saoirse Ronan as "Snow White" in the film Mirror Mirror (2012).
She was originally cast in Evil Dead (2013) but after dropping out due to scheduling conflicts, the role went to Jane Levy.
She was ranked #4 in People Magazine's 2012 World's 'Most Beautiful' Women.
Her father's Academy Award-winning song "You'll Be In My Heart" from the animated film Tarzan (1999) was written for her.
Maxim named her one of their "Hottest Daughters of Rock Stars" in 2009.
She won a 'Pandora Breakthrough Artist Award' at Glamour's Women of The Year Awards 2012.
She has done journalistic work for a variety of media outlets, including Nickelodeon and Teen Vogue.
She attended the same high school as Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) star Tori Spelling, and went on to guest star on the 90210 (2008) reboot.
She enjoys traveling and while in school, often visited places she learned about to further her education.
She designed accessories including ballet flats named after her grandmother, Jane Hale, in support of a charity providing low-cost counseling in 2008.
One of her first auditions was for Twilight (2008). She auditioned for "Bella Swan", but Kristen Stewart got the role.
She loves old antiques and anything vintage and also collects them.
Her father, the famous pop star Phil Collins was born in London as the son of Greville Philip Austin Collins, an insurance agent, and June Collins (born Winifred Strange), a talent agent. Lily's maternal grandfather, Jack Tavelman, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Jewish emigrants from Russia. Lily's maternal grandmother, Billie Jane (Shoaff), was California-born, from a family from the Southern United States, and had English, and a smaller amount of German, ancestry.
She is great friends with her The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) co-stars, Kevin Zegers and Jamie Campbell Bower.
In her book Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, she revealed that as a teenager she suffered from an eating disorder and wants to open up a conversation which affects women and men around the world.
Matt Bomer honored his friend and The Last Tycoon (2016) co-star Collins with the Lacoste Spotlight Award at the 2017 Costume Designers Guild Awards.
She is an outspoken anti-bullying advocate and became anti-bullying organization Bystander Revolution's first Ambassador in 2014.
The eating disorders recovery organization Project HEAL honored Collins and writer/director Marti Noxon for their work on the film To the Bone (2017).
She was featured at We Day Seattle 2015 as Bystander Revolution's Ambassador and delivered a speech about the power of consistent, simple actions to affect change and shift the culture of bullying toward kindness.
She was considered for the role of Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). The role eventually went to Emma Stone.
In the year of her birth (1989), her father Phil Collins had two number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, "Two Hearts" and the final number one of the decade, "Another Day in Paradise".
Longtime friend of actor Eddie Redmayne.
She auditioned for the title role in Carrie (2013). The part eventually went to Chloë Grace Moretz.
Lily once auditioned for the role of Tauriel that went to actress Evangeline Lilly in Peter Jackson's 'Hobbit' films.
Got engaged to Charlie McDowell in September 2020.
Mentioned on Live with Kelly and Ryan that her engagement occurred while on a road trip vacation in New Mexico.
Cites "You'll Be in My Heart" (from Tarzan (1999)) as her favorite song by her dad Phil Collins.
Trademarks:
Thick defined eyebrows
Quotes
Decisions are the endless uncertainties of life that we'll not know if they're right until the very end, so do the best you can and hope its right.
I'm drawn to roles that have real substance, that aren't just the victim or the teenage girl or the girlfriend.
I don't like reading things that people say on the Internet because I know so much of it is not true. I don't want to waste my time worrying about what other people are thinking. I just want to focus on being able to do cool projects.
[on her eyebrows] It used to bother me - having bigger, fuller brows. I even plucked them once so I'd fit in, but I hated them and couldn't wait for them to grow back. Now I embrace them. I realized the quirky things that make you different are what make you beautiful.
I like to wear as least amount of makeup as I can during my everyday life because I'm just all about keeping my skin healthy and hydrated and I love to laugh and have a great time and smile - that's when I feel the most pretty so I just want to make sure that I stay happy.
[on her appearance on the cover of Teen Vogue] I don't know if this is too weird to say, but this is completely surreal for me. Bizarre. The cover of Teen Vogue has been on my bucket list forever.
I've just turned 24 but I'll always be their little girl. My dad started as an actor. It's close to his heart. It excites him to see me taking on roles about growing up but, yeah, kissing scenes aren't easy for him. And in Stuck in Love. (2012), I take my top off, so that was awkward.
I think it's hilarious that people think that I have the best eyebrows in Hollywood.
[on people who watched her movies] It's very, very sweet when little girls come up to me, or when people come up and say that they've liked a film or that they've watched it with their family and been happy and laughed. That, to me, if I can help make people a part of a story, that's what I enjoyed most about being little was that I was taken into another world.
I don't feel the need to profess anything publicly or confirm something that in a normal situation you wouldn't have to speak about. If I'm out and I'm photographed with someone, then it is what it is...That's always been my natural feeling. My family went through a lot of public situations and I saw that side of it from a very young age.
I just did a film actually in Dublin where I played British, so it was lovely to be back in my natural accent, cause I haven't had one since I was five. My natural accent when I was little was British and then, when I moved to the States, everyone made fun of me and I just adapted to an American one and now this is what comes out of my mouth. Now it's just a bit of a hot mess.
That is me in a nutshell: a little bit English and a little bit American.
I grew up in England in the countryside in basically farmland and forests. I was read fairy tales before bedtime and I was totally the young girl who loved fairy tale princesses.
Someone told me they were listening to the radio and they were playing classic hits. At the end the DJ came on and said, "For all of you who don't know, that was Phil Collins - Lily Collins's dad." 'I thought that was the weirdest thing, just so bizarre. Even my dad has said to me, "You know, I am known as your dad now". But he is extremely proud and couldn't be happier.
I never understood the word "celebrity." It was just part of my everyday.
I'm such a believer in going to set, even when you're not work because I think the best things to be learned, you don't necessarily get from your own scene or from someone speaking to you and telling you advice. I think it's all about watching and just taking it all in. It's not even when the cameras are rolling, necessarily. You can see how they interact with the rest of the crew, and how they deal with being a character and then being themselves.
I do believe in listening to your mind as well that that you need to be smart about certain things, to protect yourself. You need a healthy mix of both really, but it's important not to think so much that you're not able to follow your heart.
The idea that I get to travel and do what I love and call it a job is just a blessing.
It truly is the power that you have deep within yourself that gives you the strength to pursue your dreams.
In the end when you accept yourself for who you are and you work with what you've got, you couldn't be more beautiful because you're confident and everyone notices.
Everything happens for a reason and, of course at times it's very discouraging, but at the end of the day you can't take it personally and move onward because if you let it sit with you, then it starts to eat away at you and you're allowing someone else to steal your excitement. No one wants that.
I've grown up knowing that you put as much of your private life out there as you feel comfortable with.
I had some difficult times when I first moved to Los Angeles when people would tell me I was saying things wrong. I felt different although my mum kept reminding me it was OK to be different.
People are quick to jump to conclusions.
No matter what, I need to maintain my sense of self and always be true to who I am.
I think it's important to relate to one another about issues that you're having, because the second you open up and someone else says, 'Oh, me too. I feel the same way,' then all of a sudden, you feel more at peace with yourself and you can feel more confident with who you are.
I love watching old movies anyway - I grew up with my mom watching old movies and being immersed in the history of old Hollywood.
It's really important to stand up for yourself and not always agree with what people say if indeed you don't feel that that's true.
When it comes to the work, I'm excited to see what people think. When it comes to the private life, that's when I don't pay attention.
To look into that persons eyes and find yourself so completely lost in another world, a world full of absolute comfort and happiness.
rooms of older executives and try to pitch talk show ideas and when I was writing as a journalist I would pitch ideas for my articles and I definitely understand that excitement of a pitch and what that is to be young and a woman and trying to make your voice heard.
It's great when improve is encouraged. It's a really fun thing. It depends on who's in the movie and how their process works, as well. It takes a director who is open to that because you have a script, but then something funny could happen on set. So, to have people around you who encourage improve is really exciting.
I like to think of myself as a very passionate person, and as very determined. So, if I set my mind on something, I definitely stop at no end to find within myself the power to keep going, whether that involves thinking of a new approach to a problem, or physically challenging myself.
I'm not one to hide anything, but I don't feel the need to comment directly on [my relationships]...I think it would be a shame to not live in the moment and not enjoy everything that's happening in fear of other people's opinions.
