Lily Collins is the picture perfect definition of a star.
As the British newspaper The Telegraph said “She has an adorable, sensational, almost perfect face for cinema; think Audrey Hepburn with the eyebrows of Liam Gallagher. Her smile is the Platonic ideal of cheeky.
”She doesn’t just look the part, though. Following in the steps of her superstar father, Phil Collins, Lily is a success in the celebrity world.
Collins got her big-screen debut in the 2009 film The Blind Side, starring alongside superstars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. From there, she went on to be in the 2011 vampire movie Priest and action-thriller Abduction with Taylor Lautner. 2012 brought more movie credits when Collins starred as Snow White in Mirror Mirror and indie film Stuck in Love.
2013 was a big year for Collins though, when she scored the starring role in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, in which Collin plays Clary, an ordinary teenager who finds out that she is actually a descendant in a line of Shadowhunters, young half-angels who are stuck in a battle to protect their secret world from demons.
This year, Collins scored her next big on-screen role in the Irish film Love, Rosie. In the film, Collins stars alongside Hunger Games actor Sam Claflin as childhood friends that should be more but can never quite get it right.
Collins is more than an actor though. She is also a published journalist. She got her start when she wrote for Elle Girl UK when she was 15. She wrote a column called LA Confidential, in which she wrote about her hometown, Hollywood life and fashion. She has also written various columns for Teen Vogue and Seventeen magazine.
Collins brought her journalism skills off of the page and onto the screen when she hosted Nickelodeon’s “Kids Pick the President,” in which she covered the presidential campaign. She also expanded her television experience when she appeared in a few episodes of The Hills.
Collins found that she enjoyed journalism so much that she decided to attend USC to study broadcast journalism. She dropped out two years later when she was offered bigger film roles and is now working on her degree in between projects.
Though Collins has no trouble being in the spotlight, she likes to keep her personal life hidden away. She refuses to comment on her love life, family or anything but her roles, which is a welcome breath of fresh air. As she told The Guardian in 2012, “I don’t see this as a game. I’ve grown up knowing that you put as much of your private life out there as you feel comfortable with.”
(Photos via Lily for Karl Lagerfeld)