Approaching Lost

Michael Emerson Interview

by Nikki on January 9th, 2008

IGN got an exclusive interview with Michael Emerson. He chats about the flash-forward reveal, a couple clues on Season 4, playing Ben, and much more!

Here are some key highlights…

IGN TV: What did you think when you read the reveal to the flash-forward in the script?

Emerson: Well, it wasn’t in my script! It was left out of everybody’s script except Matt [Fox] and Evangeline [Lily]. So I didn’t know what they were doing until it was broadcast. I didn’t see those scenes and had no idea. And at first, I suppose like everybody else, I was a little bit confused. I thought “Jack with beard… what kind of flashback is this? When did he ever let his beard grow?” And then when it dawned on me that this wasn’t in the past, this was in the future and that some survived, but not happily… And that their post island life is every bit as fraught and filled with regret and misjudgment as their life on the island… I just thought “Oh, that’s really grown up.”

IGN TV: Some fans think Ben is a likely candidate for whose funeral Jack attended.

Emerson: Wow. I don’t know about that… That seems… hmm… I don’t know. Unless there’s some big changes in the course of the character between now and then, I can’t imagine that anyone would visit [his funeral].

IGN TV: The theory is that if your character was right that Jack shouldn’t have gotten on that phone with the people on the boat and that leaving the island was a bad idea, that maybe Jack would go to his funeral out of… well I don’t know if respect is the right word.

Emerson: Ahh, right. I think Ben is dead right about that. I think we can trust Ben on that one; that the people on the boat mean them no good.

IGN TV: You and Locke had a pretty fascinating dynamic last season. How is it working with Terry O’Quinn?

Emerson: I love working with him. We make a good team, you know? We’re like a double act. It’s like we’ve been on vaudeville forever and we know each others signs and signals and rhythms and stuff. We tend to move at a fairly high rate of speed through our material and it usually works out smoothly and well. I was so delighted when he got the Emmy, because I think it was so very much deserved. And I also felt like we shared in that honor, because we’re so joined at the hip on the show. So many of our scenes are really great scenes and that’s sort of central to the themes of the show as well. I really love working with him.

IGN TV: Any other hints you can give on Season 4?

Emerson: Well, there’s a new threat and the threat comes from off island. So that’s a whole new set of circumstances. There’s a lot more moving around. People go more places in this season. And of course we have this sort of tri-level storytelling, which is really exciting and allows for a lot of amazing trickery and misdirection. There’s all this business where we can be in the present, the past or the future, and the clever ways that can all be played with are going to be really exciting.

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POSTED IN: Interviews, Michael Emerson