Entertainment Weekly: First Look at Evangeline Lilly’s Elf Tauriel

Image Credit: EW Weekly

Many Tolkien fans around the world are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Peter Jackson’s second part of The Hobbit trilogy The Desolation of Smaug, which will open on December 13.

A lot of the growing excitement surrounding this particular installment has to do with the addition of new characters, including Thranduil the Elven King of Mirkwood, Beorn, Bard the Bowman, and of course the dragon Smaug. But there has been one character in particular that has caused some controversy within the Tolkien community. A character created solely for the film that does not exist within Tolkien’s narrative: Tauriel, a Mirkwood elf warrior played by actress Evangeline Lilly.

This morning, Entertainment Weekly published an exclusive article offering a first look into Lilly’s character Tauriel.  Tauriel is a Sylvan Elf, an elf of a lower “order” than other elven characters such as Arwen or Legolas but according to Lilly,  Tauriel “sort of goes against the social order of the elves a little bit.” In the article, Lilly also alludes to a possible romance between Tauriel and Orlando Bloom’s character Legolas.

Evangeline Lilly mentions that she knows that there will be “people who will totally hate Tauriel,” but is optimistic saying “if anyone knows how to respect Tolkien, it’s Peter, Fran and Phil. And Tauriel fits perfectly in that world.”

So what can we expect from Tauriel? At this point, it is difficult to say, but you can see her, along with Bilbo and Company in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on the big screen this winter.

To read more about Tauriel, check on the full Entertainment Weekly article here.