Lily Collins

Born in Guildford on 18 March 1989, Lily Collins is a British-American actor whose career has moved easily between romantic drama, fantasy, period pieces and contemporary television. She began acting at the age of two in the BBC series Growing Pains, later moving to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents’ divorce. Collins reached a wider film audience as Collins Tuohy in The Blind Side before taking on roles in the thriller Priest and the action film Abduction. Mirror Mirror gave her a playful leading part as Snow White, while The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones placed her at the centre of a larger fantasy world as Clary Fray. As Rosie Dunne in Love, Rosie, she showed the warmth and easy charm that would become an important part of her screen presence. Her work has not stayed in one lane. Collins played aspiring actress Marla Mabrey in Rules Don’t Apply, earning her first Golden Globe nomination, and took the demanding central role of Ellen in To the Bone. She also appeared in Bong Joon-ho’s Okja, portrayed Edith Tolkien in Tolkien and played Elizabeth Kendall in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. In Mank, she took the supporting role of English transcriber Rita Alexander. Television has given Collins some of her most visible parts. She brought steeliness and vulnerability to Fantine in the BBC adaptation of Les Misérables, then shifted into lighter territory as the title character of Emily in Paris. The series earned her a second Golden Globe nomination, this time for actress in a television musical or comedy. Collins made her West End debut in 2024 as Irene in Bess Wohl’s Barcelona, opposite Álvaro Morte. It was another turn in a career shaped less by a single defining genre than by her willingness to move between polished comedy, heightened fantasy and emotionally difficult drama.