Harold Perrineau Talks More About His Lost Departure

Harold Perrineau recently chatted about his unhappiness regarding his character’s fate on Lost.

Entertainment Weekly chatted with Perrineau after the interview to see if he would elaborate on those thoughts.

Perrineau says that he’s not bitter about Michael dying, but he is disappointed. “I thought he was going to have something just as significant when he came back. I was disappointed that he didn’t. He didn’t get to make amends with those people. And nobody got to see [him try to neutralize the bomb]. Walt didn’t get to see it. Jin got to see it, but wasn’t necessarily so mad at him. And Desmond, who Michael didn’t know at all, was there. I was disappointed more than anything, like the fans were disappointed. Like I think the fans were disappointed.”

As for going public with his feelings regarding his character being “black” and leaving his child fatherless, Perrineau says that “I should probably think more before I say things. I should especially think before I say anything racial, because I recognize that when you make a racial comment it polarizes people. That was never the intention. It’s like, ‘No, no, no, don’t choose sides. I’m just telling you this is what I think. Everybody stay on whatever side you’re on; this is my point-of-view.’ I should think about those things, and then unfortunately what happens is I just start to talk — like I’m doing now, I should probably shut up.”

Perrineau had no idea what was in store for Michael when he agreed to come back. And if he had known, he thinks he would have asked to have a conversation about it. “And then I might have said, ‘Hey, these are some of the things that I think. What do you think about that?’ And [executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse] would say, ‘This is how it’s going to play out in the story line or not going to play out in the story line.’ We find out things pretty quickly and then have to process it and go do the work…. I wouldn’t have chosen it if it were me.” That said, Perrineau would have done what they said. He thinks they are brilliant guys with a fantastic show. They know exactly what they’re doing, so he doesn’t question that!

Perrineau wishes that Michael would have come back and redeemed himself. “I didn’t think he got to redeem himself especially to the people who I feel like he wronged. I wanted Michael to go back and do something for them so that they felt like he really put out and that he did something to satisfy his own guilt and their anger….” He continues, “I wish Michael would have gotten to be the father that he had always wanted to be, because he’s a good dude.”

But there’s still hope. “There are definitely possibilities for Michael to return — and maybe even possibilities for the thing I’m hoping for to happen,” Perrineau says. “Maybe there’s some way through Walt’s eyes, or through a vision, Michael gets to redeem himself to those people. Or maybe never. When they said, ‘We’re not going to finish with him here, but as on Lost, you never know who comes back, and dead doesn’t mean you’re gone from the show.’”

Image used with permission from Newscom
Source: Hollywood Insider