Once the company is out of Mirkwood she's done most likely pending the DG stuff(which is all about the Counsel most likely). PJ said the barrels were "relatively early" in the movie. She just isn't gunna get the screen and vocal time everyone is so worried about. Some fighting scenes and some scenes in Thranduil's halls then done. She can't possibly ruin the movie in any meaningful way. I don't even consider her a well known actor....she'll always be the chick from Lost to me

I do think that Tauriel will be at the Battle of the Five Armies. There is where we are likely to see the culmination of her character-arc.

If Tauriel is important enough to have her own arc, then her role won't be as backgroundish as that of the other women. That makes me worried.

but in the book they guarded the prisoners in the cells and weren't trying to interrogating orcs for Thranduil, or chasing and killing spiders, or any of the other made up fan fiction that Lilly will surely be doing in the films. It would be one thing for her to be the captain of the guard get drunk pass out and get her keys taken by Bilbo, I could live with that. But writing her in to be doing a bunch of made up nonsense that doesn't make sense or doesn't fit with what Tolkien wrote is just lame and unnecessary. THAT is where the contradiction is, the extent and involvement of her role in the tale. which should be if anything a small one.

I really couldn't care less about Lilly or the made up character of Tauriel. I think she is going to be, as Lilly herself put it, "a black mark", in the world of Tolkien. The whole concept of the character from what we have heard so far screams foul and goes against the source material itself. Even the supposed names meaning screams a bunch of crap. "Daughter of Mirkwood"... I thought it was Greenwood to the elves. and since Jackson felt the need to have it turning bad IN the Hobbit timeline. I'm sure the name didn't just change overnight. Some people are just optimistic about her, some are being realistic about her and her involvement in something she doesn't belong in. I guess it makes the changes easier to take for some people to see everything in a positive light. But for me once Jackson started making up characters and changing the plot of the whole story around. All the while trying to justify them, with answers that are in themselves vague and IMO side stepping the questions, he lost any respect I had for him from making LOTR. Sure there were character changes in LOTR BUT The character changes in those films were only minor(in comparison)and any made up characters were none with any real substantial plot deviations, which Tauriel surely creates since she is a totally made up, non Tolkien character. doing things that NEVER HAPPENED in the story. I do not consider the captain of the guard an actual developed character in the book since he was vague and had maybe a couple lines and was gone after a few paragraphs. Maybe if Lilly were there for a couple lines and gone after only a few minutes I could accept the character a whole lot more than i do.

The linked picture shows the two image sources together, Dol Guldur with Gandalf and Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel. Everything seems to match: the grey stone blocks, the triple set of steps, the stone columns, the gnarly trees.