From Ordinary To Extraordinary: Lily Collins' Jaw-Dropping Transformation

Lily Collins learned at a young age that her father, British superstar Phil Collins (Genesis frontman who later became a solo artist), was not like other fathers. Collins revealed the aha moment when she discovered her father was renowned in an interview with Radio Times, as reported by the Daily Mail.

When she was a youngster, her family went to Disneyland, and a park visitor wearing a T-shirt with her father's likeness approached her and her father. "I was thinking, 'Why does he want a picture of my dad, and why is my dad on his T-shirt?' Slowly but surely, I started to understand," she told the newspaper.

Lily Collins began acting as a kid and grew to love the trade from there. According to The Guardian, she starred in the BBC sitcom "Growing Pains" when she was two years old. Collins said she got the part "through some connections with my grandmother or something like that."

Collins linked her passion for performing to her childhood bedtime stories in an interview with Shondaland. "My mom and dad would read books to me before bed, as a lot of parents do, and I would just kind of disappear in this dream world in my head of what the movie would look like," she told the paper.

As a teen, Lily Collins struggled with an eating condition. During an appearance on the "Make It Reign" podcast in 2021, the actress revealed to presenter Josh Smith that she had relied on therapy to help her manage it throughout the years.

She said that therapy helped her "[get] to the root of why I allowed those darker thoughts to dictate how I lived my life, what I ate or didn't eat, and just the restrictions I put on myself."While she didn't say what those ideas were, she did say they were more often when she was younger and don't "apply to me anymore."

Before acting became her life, Lily Collins wanted to be a journalist and even tried her hand at it for a time. Collins revealed in a 2019 interview with The Guardian that when she was younger, she intended to be "the youngest-ever talk show host." To do this, she wrote for a few magazines, including Teen Vogue and Elle Girl, and reported for the children's network Nickelodeon on the 2008 presidential election and Barack Obama's inauguration.

She went one step further and enrolled in the University of Southern California's broadcast journalism program. Collins, on the other hand, dropped out of her sophomore year after landing her first film part in "The Blind Side," establishing her acting career. Collins, however, did not abandon her passion for writing and journalism entirely. In 2017, she released her memoir "Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me." 

While many actresses struggle to get strong roles at the start of their careers, Lily Collins landed her first film part as Sandra Bullock's daughter in 2009's "The Blind Side," according to Deadline. Collins' acting career would be launched by the Oscar-nominated picture, and she would go on to feature in films like "Mirror Mirror" and other Netflix productions, including "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" and "Okja."

Collins told the outlet that winning the role in "The Blind Side" was "pretty wild," adding, "When we heard we got nominated, a lot of people said to me, 'So, you know this isn't normal.'" This isn't going to happen every time.'"

Lily Collins suffered with body image issues when she was younger and has now learnt to appreciate what she formerly saw as flaws. Collins spoke honestly about her former insecurities, one of which was her naturally thick brows, in an interview with Elle in 2021. "When I was younger, I was definitely more self-conscious of my eyebrows," she told the site.

Collins claims her mother, Jill Tavelman, urged her to appreciate "the quirky things that make you different," but she didn't get it until she was older. Collins revealed in her memoir "Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me" how she "went to town" on her brows and plucked half of them off. She knows better now.

Lily Collins learned as an adult to accept her background and her parent's choice to divorce when she was only five years old, which caused her to see her father, Phil Collins, less frequently. Collins, who was born in England, will relocate to Los Angeles with her mother following the divorce, according to InStyle.

Collins' mother, Jill Tavelman, told People in 1994 that her daughter "hasn't seen her father for two months," adding, "She keeps weeping, 'I want my daddy.'" Phil sends her faxes, but I know she prefers to speak with him. Phil does not call since he has to conserve his voice for the following day."

Lily Collins does not accept each acting part that is offered to her, even after decades in the Entertainment world. Collins revealed in an interview with Shondaland that she is drawn to characters that she feels would "teach me a lot about myself and challenge me." She mentioned her performance as Fantine in the PBS adaptation of "Les Misérables," which aired from 2018 to 2019. "It's the most raw I've ever had to be in the moment, especially as Fantine's demise begins." "It was the most grueling work I've ever done, both physically and emotionally," she told the site.

Another hard role was in "To the Bone," a 2017 film about an anorexic lady named Ellen who is suffering from and gradually recovering from an eating disorder. Collins, who struggled with anorexia and bulimia as a child, explained to USA Today how she got into character by dropping weight. "I personally knew that this was something I needed to do to tell this story," she told the newspaper. She went on to say, "I wanted to be able to best exert my experiences on (Ellen) by going to the lengths I felt comfortable going to as an actor."

When the script for "Emily in Paris" fell into Lily Collins' lap, she knew she had to play Emily. "The overall tone of 'Emily in Paris' was something that I'd been wanting to find for a long time, but it's hard when it comes to romantic comedies," she told Vogue at the time.

Emily (played by Collins), an American fashionista who travels to Paris to work at a marketing agency but doesn't know much about French culture or speak the language, is the focus of the Netflix series, which started in 2020 and will screen its second season in December 2021. Collins described it as a "dream job" while appearing on "Live with Kelly and Ryan" when the first season began in 2020.

Lily Collins has discovered a better balance between work and pleasure after three decades in the entertainment industry (remember, she earned her first acting part at the age of two, according to The Guardian). Collins said to Vogue Australia in 2021 that as an aspiring actor, she was work and future-oriented "because I knew so badly where I wanted to go and where I was headed." Or longing to go." "That was my focus," the actor told the magazine, "and I lost sight of present moments, and the 'now' moments."

Collins is still work-driven, but she allows herself to enjoy her time with family and friends, as well as the life she's built for herself. Collins practices mindfulness techniques such as meditation and writing whenever she feels unbalanced. Collins does allow herself to fantasize and says she intends to experience parenthood and continue to create tales on screen in the future, but for now, she's focused "far more on the present, and the future will come."

Lily Collins met her future husband on the set of a film. With a series of Instagram images, the actress confirmed her engagement to writer and director Charlie McDowell in September 2020.

She captioned the photo album of the proposal and ring, "I've been waiting my lifetime for you and I can't wait to spend our lifetime together." Collins and McDowell dated for a year before he proposed on a road trip in New Mexico, according to People.

Lily Collins has had various roles in Hollywood, including actor, writer, model, and socialite. She not only acted in Seasons 1 and 2 of the Netflix blockbuster "Emily in Paris," but she also served as the show's producer. Collins told Vogue Australia that producing allows her more control over the project, which will be released on Netflix in late 2021.

Collins told the outlet that one of the things she was "very vocal" about as producer on Season 2 was providing her co-stars greater screen time and improving the cast's diversity.