Lily Collins

Lily Jane Collins was born on March 18, 1989, in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is musician Phil Collins, and her mother is Jill Tavelman. After her parents separated, she grew up in Los Angeles. Collins appeared in the BBC sitcom Growing Pains as a toddler before pursuing acting as an adult. In the 2009 film The Blind Side, she played Collins Tuohy, the daughter of Leigh Anne Tuohy, portrayed by Sandra Bullock. Her next prominent role was Snow White in Tarsem Singh’s 2012 fantasy film Mirror Mirror, opposite Julia Roberts as the queen.

In 2013, Collins starred as Clary Fray in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, an adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s young adult novel. She played Rosie Dunne opposite Sam Claflin in the 2014 romantic drama Love, Rosie, adapted from Cecelia Ahern’s novel Where Rainbows End. Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply cast Collins as aspiring actress Marla Mabrey in a story involving Howard Hughes. That performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a motion picture musical or comedy. In 2017, she portrayed Ellen, a young woman receiving treatment for anorexia, in Marti Noxon’s film To the Bone.

Collins also appeared as Red, a member of an animal rights group, in Bong Joon-ho’s 2017 film Okja. She played Edith Bratt, who later married J. R. R. Tolkien, in the 2019 biographical film Tolkien, with Nicholas Hoult in the title role. Another 2019 film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, featured her as Elizabeth Kloepfer, Ted Bundy’s longtime girlfriend. In David Fincher’s Mank (2020), she played Rita Alexander, secretary to screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. The film depicts Mankiewicz’s work on the screenplay for Citizen Kane, with Gary Oldman portraying the writer.

Since 2020, Collins has starred in Netflix’s Emily in Paris, created by Darren Star. She plays Emily Cooper, a Chicago marketing executive who moves to Paris for work at a French firm. The part brought her a Golden Globe nomination for best actress in a television musical or comedy series. Collins published Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me in 2017; its essays discuss her experiences with body image and eating disorders. She married filmmaker Charlie McDowell in Colorado in September 2021. McDowell directed Collins in the 2022 Netflix thriller Windfall, in which she stars alongside Jason Segel and Jesse Plemons. The film concerns a burglary interrupted when a wealthy couple arrives at their vacation home.