Harold Perrineau Not too Happy About His Exit

TV Guide sat down with Harold Perrineau and chatted about his untimely exit from Lost.

Harold had no idea that his character was going to be killed off. “It’s like, what the hell? I came back for that?” Harold says. “I’m disappointed, mostly because I wanted Michael and Walt to have a happy ending. I was hoping Michael would get it together and actually want to be a father to his kid and try to figure out a way to get back [home]. But this is [the producers'] story. If I were writing it, I would write it differently.”

Harold says that Lindelof and Cuse called him before the final scripts were out to let him know that the Michael storyline was not going to continue. Harold thought it was a waste. “At this point, I’ve been on the island, off the island, back on the island — so I just went, “Oh, ok.” [Laughs] This is their show and they know what they can or cannot write. I thought it was disappointing and a waste to come back, only to get beat up a few times and then killed. I felt like it was sort of pandering to some fans who wanted to see Michael punished because he betrayed people.”

Harold admits his disappointment regarding Michael and Walt being unable to reconnect. He even goes so far to call it a bad black stereotype…

“If I’m being really candid, there are all these questions about how they respond to black people on the show. Sayid gets to meet Nadia again, and Desmond and Penny hook up again, but a little black boy and his father hooking up, that wasn’t interesting? Instead, Walt just winds up being another fatherless child. It plays into a really big, weird stereotype and, being a black person myself, that wasn’t so interesting.”

Carlton Cuse responds to this, saying that they price themselves on having a very racially diverse cast. “It’s painful when any actor’s storyline ends on the show. Harold is a fantastic actor whose presence added enormously to Lost.”

Harold would be open to coming back but says he would need to know the story-line before showing up again. “I’d love to go back and work with people I really like working with, but I would have to know what was happening [story-wise] before I showed up again. Because this [last] storyline, I full-on feel, “No, that’s not cool.’”

Image used with permission from Newscom
Source: TV Guide