Emilie de Ravin: What Happened To Her After Lost?
After Lost, Emilie de Ravin starred on Once Upon A Time and then took a moderate break while having two children with her now-husband.
Emilie de Ravin has found herself starring in two of the most popular ABC series in recent memory: Lost and Once Upon A Time. These shows brought enough attention to de Ravin that one would believe that her star was on the way to the top.
Yet since appearing in both shows years ago, de Ravin hasn’t been as prominent as she once was. So, why haven’t we seen more from her in recent years?
Here’s where Emilie de Ravin came from and where she is now.
EMILIE DE RAVEN IS MARRIED AND HAS CHILDREN
Emilie de Ravin has kept fairly quiet since Once Upon A Time concluded. Part of that could be due to just wanting a more settled family life. She is married to Eric Bilitich and has two children, ages 6 and 4. Plus, it was announced in April 2023 that a third child was on the way.
But while things have been on the quieter front for the actress, that is turning around some. She was in the Australian series True Colours and also has the movie Wreckage coming up. After a star turn on Lost and a family, Emilie De Raven could be starting a new phase of her career.
SHE STARTED AS A DANCER AND BALLERINA
At age 9, Emilie de Ravin began practicing ballet, beginning her studies at the Christa Cameron School of Ballet in Melbourne, Australia. After a number of years at Christa Cameron, de Ravin found herself at age 15 accepted into the Australian Ballet School, where the young dancer performed in productions with The Australian Ballet.
Her time at the Australian Ballet School lasted one year when de Ravin decided that she wanted to try her hand at acting. She left the ballet school for Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art, where she began to learn the craft, and also spent some time studying at the Prime Time Actors Studio in Los Angeles.
EMILIE DE RAVIN WAS IN BEASTMASTER AND ROSWELL
Moving on from ballet to acting eventually paid off for Emilie de Ravin. She grabbed her first role in the TV series BeastMaster in a recurring role as The Demon Curupira. The series was loosely based on the 1982 movie, The BeastMaster, and was mainly filmed in de Ravin’s home country of Australia.
De Ravin’s next role in the teen series Roswell came to her a mere month after she relocated from Australia to Los Angeles. These two roles led Emilie de Ravin to the TV movie remake of Stephen King’s Carrie, where she played bad girl Chris Hargensen, and the TV series NCIS, The Handler, and CSI: Miami.
SHE LANDS HER BIGGEST ROLE IN LOST ON ABC
When we first see Emilie de Ravin as Claire Littleton on the beach in Lost, she is extremely pregnant. She is one of the few survivors of the plane crash but has major worries that she can’t feel her baby move.
She is reassured by Jack (Matthew Fox) that her baby is fine and eventually she finds a connection with Charlie (Dominic Monaghan). During the first season, Claire survived the plane crash, had her baby, and survived a kidnapping.
Emilie de Ravin was unable to make the Los Angeles auditions for Lost, as she was working out of the country. She did send in her audition tape, in which she was auditioning for the part of Shannon, a role that eventually went to Maggie Grace.
The producers liked what they saw of de Ravin, so they offered her the role of Claire. De Ravin was a regular on the series for its first four seasons when she mysteriously disappeared in the season finale. De Ravin would return for Lost‘s sixth and final season.
During Lost, Emilie de Ravin worked on several other projects. She was in the Rian Johnson debut feature Brick with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, then changed things up by starring in two horror movies: Santa’s Slay and the remake of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes. She also appeared in Ball Don’t Lie, The Perfect Game, and Public Enemies.
After Lost, de Ravin continued to work and was scheduled to star in the movie adaptation of the video game Onimusha, but the project fell through because of lead actor Heath Ledger’s tragic death. She was also in Operation: Endgame, Love and Other Troubles, and The Submarine Kid, all before her next big series.
EMILIE DE RAVEN MOVES TO ONCE UPON A TIME AS BELLE
Emilie de Ravin snagged the role of Belle in the hit ABC TV series Once Upon A Time, a series that brought many different fairy tales together into one narrative. The series moved back and forth between the world of fairy tales and the real world.
During the show’s seven seasons, characters from the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Arthurian legend, Greek mythology, as well as Disney characters all made appearances. The series also brought in different worlds, first beginning with Snow White and then bringing in Oz, Wonderland, Neverland, and Arendelle from Frozen.
Emilie De Ravin appeared as Belle in the first season as a recurring character, telling the Beauty and the Beast story with Robert Carlyle as her “beast” Rumplestiltskin. She was brought on as a series regular for the second season, a role she held until the end of the sixth season, when many of the cast regulars departed the series.
Emilie de Ravin spoke to Entertainment Weekly about her departure from the show and the difficulty she had filming her final scene with her co-star Robert Carlyle, “It was really emotional. The feeling and vibe on set were so special and so respectful and loving and warm.”
De Ravin continued, “But it was sad, we were crying. It was very hard to stop crying between takes. It was hard for me as I was trying to, as Emilie, not cry watching Bobby — not as the characters. I really wanted Belle to be, in essence, the strong one of accepting her moving on to whatever she believes is the next chapter after mortal existence, and being the strong one for him as well as for herself, and not breaking down.”
Emilie de Ravin’s Belle makes the ultimate sacrifice to help Rumplestiltskin find his happiness. But she also said learning about her death was not easy when she read the script, “I couldn’t stop crying. I challenged myself, like, ‘Okay, the second time I read it, [it’ll be easier], maybe I was just having an emotional day.’ The second time I read it, I was supposed to go out to lunch afterwards. Nope, can’t do it. I called Bobby [Carlyle] and said, ‘I can’t read this without crying,’ he said, ‘I know, I’m the same way.'” Thankfully, death isn’t always lasting in Once Upon A Time, as Belle did return for the series finale to help wrap up the story.
