With the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of letting up anytime soon, it’s been recommended that people stay at home as much as possible to avoid catching the coronavirus and/or spreading it around. Well, Ant-Man and Lost actress Evangeline Lilly has decided not to practice social distancing/isolation, believing that the disease isn’t as serious as has been reported.
This all started when Evangeline Lilly posted on Instagram earlier this week about how she’d taken her kids to a gymnastics camp and made sure that they’d washed their hands before going in. Lilly was subsequently criticized in the comments section about endangering the children, and one woman specifically requested that the actress stay home to help “flatten the curve and save lives.”
Evangeline Lilly responded by saying that if she and this other woman sat face-to-face, they would probably have “a lot to agree upon,” adding:
I bet we would completely agree on what we want and what we are trying to avoid, and then would challenge each other thoughtfully about how to achieve that. I'm having those conversations daily with people in my inner circle and am always considering and reconsidering my position. Where we are right now feels a lot too close to Marshall Law [sic] for my comfort already, all in the name of a respiratory flu. It's unnerving.
There’s no question that the spread of the coronavirus is being taken seriously across the world to varying degrees, but evidently Evangeline Lilly falls into the camp that believes there’s too much fuss around it. She claims that she’s given the matter a lot of thought, but isn’t willing to let this pandemic shake up her everyday life. Lilly also said the following in the same response:
I appreciate your engagement and the meaningful discourse. Let's be vigilant right now. And kind. Watchful and gracious — keeping a close eye on our leaders, making sure they don't abuse this moment to steal away more freedoms and grab more power, but gracious with each other as we try to navigate the unknown dangers of a modern, global world and power structure. Stay in touch. We're in this together. Thank you for listening. I have heard you.
Evangeline Lilly also mentioned that in addition to currently being immunocompromised, she is living with her father, who is battling stage four leukemia. Nevertheless, she refuses to put her family through “corona house arrest,” as another commenter put it, and said that “we all need to slow down, take a breath and look at the facts we are being presented with” in regard to the “global lockout.” Furthermore, she inferred that the coronavirus could be a hoax, believing that there’s “something” that happened every election year.
Whether you agree with Evangeline Lilly’s views or not, the coronavirus has certainly impacted daily life even for those who choose not to follow the distancing suggestions. All sorts of businesses have shut their doors for the foreseeable future, including major theater chains Regal Cinemas, AMC Theatres and Cinemark. Not to mention that along with various movies that were about to be released now being postponed (many of them indefinitely), various film productions have had to shut down as a safety precaution.
Having played Hope van Dyne in Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame, Evangeline Lilly is expected to reprise the character in the upcoming Ant-Man 3. Before that though, she’ll appear in Dreamland, though that doesn’t have a specific release date yet.
