Evangeline Lilly dished recently about her role as Tauriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. And even though her role doesn’t shine quite as brightly as those of fellow costars Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett, who play Arwen and Galadriel, respectively, she’s still incredibly proud of her character’s place in the film.

The film picks up where the tale of The Hobbit left off–as Bilbo Baggins and his 13 dwarves head to the Lonely Mountain, which is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon whose name is Smaug.

Evangeline Lilly plays a working class Silvan elf. She guards the Elven kingdom, and her character wasn’t featured in the original Tolkein book. She was beyond excited when asked to play the part.

“The Sylvan elves were my favorite characters in the book and it would be a dream come true to play one. I jumped at the opportunity and picked up the phone very quickly,” she said during a recent event in L.A.

Even after being told her character didn’t appear in the original book, Lilly jumped at the chance to be part of The Hobbit.

“The most important thing I wanted to bring was a sense of femininity, because I think one of the dangers in modern-day entertainment is we project this idea that female power is in embracing or copying violent men,” Lilly says.

The trilogy of Hobbit films is based on Tolkein’s The Hobbit, which was first published in 1937. The book has become a literary classic, and the films are on their way to achieving huge merits in the movie world. Evangeline Lilly is likely quite honored to play a small role in that success.

Image via Wikimedia