Kate Beckinsale’s Daughter Lily Sheen Played Young Versions of Her Mother Twice
The British actor Kate Beckinsale has a long string of accomplishments to her name but only one daughter. Lily Sheen is 23 and following her famous mother into a Hollywood career. However, Sheen began working as an actor when she was only a child. And the roles she played were ones she was uniquely suited for.
Lily Sheen played Kate Beckinsale as a child
As the daughter of two actors — Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen — Lily Sheen had a good chance of ending up in showbiz. She participated in amateur theater as a child, and during a performance of High School Musical, she realized she loved the stage.
Sheen soon moved on from kids’ theater, and in 2006, at age 7, she appeared in her first movie, Underworld: Evolution. Three years later, she was back, in the movie Everybody’s Fine, Collider reports.
Sheen’s famous parents had a hand in getting her both roles, but not because they were working their contacts to give her an advantage. Both times, her mother starred in the movie, and the scripts called for someone to play her as a child. Who better to portray a young Beckinsale than her own daughter?
After Everybody’s Fine, Sheen took a long break from acting. But now she’s back.
Lily Sheen is building her own career
From 2009 to 2022, Lily Sheen didn’t appear in any movies, and she explained there’s a good reason.
“I went through school,” she said in a recent Collider interview. “My parents were very adamant about me having an education, which I really respect, and having some semblance of normalcy through my life. So I think throughout the years, I’ve just been trying to kind of learn how to be a human person, you know?”
But now she’s ready to return to acting, and her first movie as an adult boasts some major star power.
Sheen is in the recently released The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and this time, she plays the daughter of Nicolas Cage’s character. Although this project marks the first time Sheen has worked on a film without having family in the cast, she says it doesn’t feel much different.
“It’s very interesting because obviously I was working with my own family on Underworld, so it was that kind of feeling of support, and it felt like a family affair. And interestingly enough, it was the same feeling on this set for Unbearable Weight. It was amazing to walk into a set that was really embracing me and embracing all of the actors and wanting everyone to do well, and that’s kind of a cornerstone of family.”
More about her famous mom
Kate Beckinsale also came from a family of actors. According to IMDb, she was born in London, and her parents worked on numerous British TV shows. Her father died unexpectedly in 1979, but her mother continues to act occasionally.
Beckinsale was a student at Oxford when she landed her first big role in 1993. She appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It took her a few more years to break into the U.S. market, gaining widespread recognition with the 1995 movie Cold Comfort Farm.
Since then, she’s starred in many blockbusters, including Pearl Harbor, The Aviator, Click, and Total Recall.
Sheen is Kate Beckinsale’s only child, and now she’s an adult with her own acting career. If Beckinsale takes on another movie that calls for an actor to play her as a kid, she’ll have to find someone else to take the role. It’s probably not that high of a price to pay to watch her daughter find her path in Hollywood.
