In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Evangeline Lilly - a self-described Tolkien purist who once considered it sacrilege that anyone would adapt Tolkien’s work - gives us a bit more information about the character she plays.

Tauriel, a Mirkwood elf, is described by Evangeline Lilly like this:

She is a warrior. She’s actually the head of the Elven guard. She’s the big shot in the army. So she knows how to wield any weapon, but the primary weapons that she uses are a bow and arrow and two daggers. And she’s lethal and deadly.

When asked how much she she appears in the movie, she explains that the character – which was made for the movie and does not appear in the books – only appears briefly at the end of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and has a much more active role to play in The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

She’s not in the first film very much. She comes into the first film near the end, and has a very small part to play. Her role in the second film is much more involved. Although, I have to say, when I first read the scripts and took the job, she had a lot less going on in the second film. I think the role is becoming a bit more demanding that I had expected it to be. There’s a lot more for me to do now, which is a lot of fun, but it’s a little more pressure.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing the way Peter Jackson puts this new character into the story, a story that has always been very much in need of more female characters.