Lily Collins

• 1. Introduction

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  Lily Collins was two years old when she first appeared on screen, in the BBC sitcom Growing Pains. She was born in Guildford, England, on the 18th of March 1989, and she was raised in Los Angeles. That divided upbringing is why she is described as both an English and an American actress. This documentary follows what came after that toddler debut. How did a child with a famous father shape a career on her own terms? Why did she choose to speak openly about her health while guarding her private life? And what kinds of roles keep drawing her back?

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• 2. Between Two Worlds

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  Phil Collins, the English musician, and his second wife, Jill Tavelman, were Lily's parents. Tavelman is American and is the former president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club. Her own father was a Canadian Jewish immigrant who owned a men's clothing store in Beverly Hills, California, for many years.

  The year 1996 brought her parents' divorce, when Lily was seven. She moved to Los Angeles with her mother. She later graduated from Harvard-Westlake School and then attended the University of Southern California, where she majored in broadcast journalism.

  That degree choice made sense for a young woman who was already writing for print as a teenager, in a British magazine with a column all her own.

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• 3. Debutante and Columnist

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  In 2007, Collins walked into the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris for the Bal des débutantes, where she was presented as a debutante. Chanel had selected her to wear one of its gowns. The evening was later featured on season three of the reality series The Hills.

  The column she wrote as a teenager was called "NY Confidential", and it ran in the British magazine Elle Girl. She also wrote for Seventeen, Teen Vogue and the Los Angeles Times.

  Spain's edition of Glamour picked her as its International Model of the Year in 2008. She then appeared on the magazine's cover in August 2009.

  Television gave her another platform in 2008. She covered the US presidential election as a host on the Nickelodeon series Kids Pick the President. That same year she won a Young Hollywood Award as Newest Red Carpet Correspondent.

  Maxim magazine included her among 20 women it named Hottest Daughters of Rock Stars in 2009. That was also the year of the film that would make her face familiar to cinema audiences.

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• 4. Fairytales and Franchises

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  Two episodes of the teen drama 90210 gave Collins an early foothold, and one of them was the finale of the show's first season. Her breakthrough came in The Blind Side, where she played Collins Tuohy, the daughter of Sandra Bullock's character, Leigh Anne Tuohy. The film grossed over $250 million and became the highest-grossing sports drama of all time.

  In 2011 she played Lucy, the daughter of a warrior priest, in the thriller Priest, opposite Paul Bettany. The film failed with critics and at the box office, yet her performance drew praise. MTV Networks' NextMovie.com named her one of its Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011. That year she also co-starred with Taylor Lautner in the action film Abduction.

  Snow White was her part in Mirror Mirror, released in 2012, an adaptation of the fairytale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Robbie Collin of the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph wrote: "She has an adorable, sensational, almost perfect face for cinema; think Audrey Hepburn with the eyebrows of Liam Gallagher." The film also marked her singing debut, with an English rewritten cover of "I Believe (in Love)". Also in 2012, she played Samantha in Stuck in Love.

  A scheduling issue forced her to drop out of the lead role in the 2013 remake of Evil Dead. Another project stepped in instead. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones cast her as Clary Fray, the heroine of the first novel in Cassandra Clare's book series. The role earned her a Teen Choice Award nomination in 2014.

  In August 2013, a music video for the band M83 gave her the title role of an alien who visits Earth, in "Claudia Lewis". In October 2013 she appeared in the video for "City of Angels" by Thirty Seconds to Mars.

  Rosie Dunne, the lead of the 2014 film Love, Rosie, was her next big part. The film received a negative reception, but Donald Clarke of The Irish Times described Collins as "perfectly charming."

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• 5. Awards-Season Gambles

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  The 25 million dollar budget of Rules Don't Apply, released in November 2016, was set against a box office of just $3.9 million. Reviews were mixed. Collins played Marla Mabrey, an aspiring actress, and the performance earned her first Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, at the 74th Golden Globe Awards.

  Amazon picked up The Last Tycoon, a pilot Collins had been part of in 2016, to series on the 27th of July 2016. The show was loosely based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's last book. In September 2017, Amazon cancelled its plans for a second season.

  In March 2016, she joined the lead of the anorexia drama To the Bone, written and directed by Marti Noxon. Her character, Ellen, is a 20-year-old woman with anorexia nervosa. The film premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival on the 22nd of January 2017. Netflix released it worldwide on the 14th of July 2017.

  The subject was not new to her. As a teenager Collins suffered from an eating disorder, and she described it in her 2017 memoir, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me. The book discusses her struggles with mental health and body image.

  Controversy followed the Netflix release, over whether the film might be triggering for people with eating disorders. That debate was shaped partly by criticism of another Netflix original, 13 Reasons Why, which had been accused of glamorising suicide. Reviewers still singled out her work. One called it "exemplary work from Lily Collins in the central role." Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "In a different film, Ellen's sharp tongue might have made her an insufferable fount of wisecracking negativity, but Collins' performance is subtler than that, and the script gives her ample opportunity to reveal the character's more complicated, vulnerable edges."

  That same year, she was cast in Okja, a Netflix film directed by Bong Joon-ho. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and drew a four-minute standing ovation after its premiere.

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• 6. Biopics and Costume Drama

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  Filming began in February 2018 in Belgium and Northern France for a BBC miniseries of Les Misérables, adapted by Andrew Davies and directed by Tom Shankland. Collins played Fantine, a young woman in Paris abandoned by her wealthy lover, who must raise their child, Cosette, alone. Alexandra Pollard of The Independent wrote that Collins "plays the tragic Fantine with steeliness and grace" in a "magnificent" performance. Another critic wrote that she impressed from the start with an emotionally rich performance and did not sing her anguished soul out.

  Zac Efron was her co-star in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, directed by Joe Berlinger. Collins played Elizabeth Kendall, the long-time girlfriend of Ted Bundy, who struggles to accept that her boyfriend is a serial killer. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on the 26th of January 2019.

  October 2017 was the month filming began on Tolkien, and it wrapped in December. Collins played Edith Tolkien, the wife of author J. R. R. Tolkien. The film was released on the 10th of May 2019.

  In 2020 she played Rita Alexander, an English transcriber to the writer Herman J. Mankiewicz, in Mank. The film was critically acclaimed.

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• 7. Paris, Polly Pocket and the Stage

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  The same year as Mank, 2020, brought two more starring roles. One was the thriller Inheritance, directed by Vaughn Stein. The other was the Netflix series Emily in Paris, about a young American working in Paris. Collins plays the marketing executive Emily Cooper.

  The series brought her a second Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy. As a producer, she was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, in 2021.

  June 2021 saw an announcement that she would produce a film about the children's toy Polly Pocket, directed by Lena Dunham, and would play the title role. In February 2026, it was announced that she would play Audrey Hepburn in a film about the making of the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's. Years earlier, a critic had reached for Hepburn's name to describe her face. The Cradle, directed by Hope Dickinson Leach, is another film she is scheduled to star in.

  London's West End saw her stage debut in 2024, in Bess Wohl's play Barcelona. She played Irene, opposite Álvaro Morte. The Standard called her performance "sensational" and noted that "her appearance generates a crackle of excitement."

  In 2026, the fashion platform Zalando appointed her as its first global brand ambassador. She headlined its Spring/Summer 2026 campaign.

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• 8. Causes and Home Life

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  Since 2018, Collins has been an ambassador for the GO Campaign, a nonprofit that raises awareness and funds to improve the lives of orphans and vulnerable children around the world. She is also an outspoken anti-bullying advocate and serves as a Celebrity Ambassador for the organisation Bystander Revolution. In the 2024 United States presidential election, she endorsed Kamala Harris.

  In 2013, Collins said she disliked discussing her relationships in public. She had seen how heavy media coverage made her parents' divorce more painful.

  She announced her engagement to the American film director and writer Charlie McDowell in September 2020. They married on the 4th of September 2021 at Dunton Hot Springs, Colorado. In 2022 she bought Case Study House No. 10 in Pasadena, California. In March 2023, it was reported that the couple had also bought a townhouse in the Østerbro district of Copenhagen, Denmark.

  A post on Instagram in 2025 announced the birth of their first child, a daughter, via surrogacy.

  McDowell is also the director of Gilded Rage, one of the films she is scheduled to star in.

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