Based on the characters
he plays on TV, you probably think Alan Dale is an intimidating jerk. It turns out that that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The New Zealand actor best known in America for his roles on The O.C., 24, Ugly Betty and Lost is actually a nice guy in real life. Luckily, this popular misconception doesn’t bother Dale too much since it affords him a certain amount of privacy.

We recently had to opportunity to sit down with Dale and pleasantly chat about the final season of Lost, his tragic history of on-screen heart attacks and his sweet 1970s afro.

How did you get into acting? When did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

I was probably in my 20s when I decided that’s what I wanted to do, but I had been doing it for years because my parents were involved in amateur theatre in New Zealand, where I grew up. They and some friends built a little theater at one point. I used to go in there and sneakily smoke cigarettes behind the sets and wind the wind machine when it was required and get involved. It was a place that I enjoyed.

When I got to my 20s, I was messing around. I sold cars and real estate, then I went back to university to do a law degree. And one day I thought, “I can be a lawyer or a judge. I can be a doctor or just be an actor. I’ll do it all.”

Did you work steadily as an actor early on or were you doing other things besides acting?

It was an odd thing because I was married at the time and I said to my wife, “Look, I’ve decided this is what I want to do” and in New Zealand, the population at the time was three million people – there wasn’t going to be much chance of making a living. But I did, for some reason. Fairly shortly afterward, I got a role in a series that lasted about nine months. Then I did have a period of a few months out of work, so I went to Australia and almost immediately went into a series there that lasted for three and a half years.

I also did a bit of radio along the way, so that was the sort of thing I used to do to fill in the gap. So I really had a good time, to be honest.

What made you decide to move to the United States? Did you come here to pursue an acting career?

It was for acting. I had been in a series that was very big in Australia, a series called Neighbours. Neighbours was a hit in Europe and Asia and Australia and New Zealand and I’d been in that for eight and a half years. That character that I played meant that it was very difficult for me to get a role in anything else in Australia.

So I fiddled around with it for a while, then in 1999, I did a movie of the week called First Daughter – an American movie made in Australia. I played the chief of Presidential security. I overheard the producer talking about what they were paying one of the American actors and I thought, “He’s getting about 10 times what I’m getting, I should go to America.” So I just picked up my wife and we had a two year old at the time and we just came across to see what would happen. It’s been fantastic, so that’s why I came and we find ourselves living here in California and very happy.

Three of your big American roles have been Vice President Jim Prescott on 24, Caleb Nichols on The O.C. and Charles Widmore on Lost, all of whom are powerful, tough men. Why do you think you keep getting cast in these types of roles?

Good question. I think part of it is because I can’t play the juvenile lead anymore. (Laughs.) I look like I do. It is interesting because before I came here, I didn’t play this sort of role very often in Australia. I became famous in Australia and New Zealand and England for this role in Neighbours where I was Australia’s most beloved father, really. But that was me when I was younger and I had hair and [this type or role] just seems to be the one that I’ve fallen into. I have tried out for other roles, but this is the one I seem to always get. So what do you do? It’s a living.

Three of your best known characters – Jim Robinson on Neighbours, Caleb Nichol on The O.C. and Bradford Meade in Ugly Betty were written out of their shows through fatal heart attacks.

It’s terrible. I think I should go into the Guinness Book of Records as the actor who has had the most heart attacks on television.

It’s got to be a little disconcerting.

(Laughs.) Well, I do wonder if that’s how I’m going to go.

If so, it will undoubtedly be a fantastic scene.

Well, yes and I’m hoping the cameras are rolling.

How did you end up with the role of Charles Widmore on Lost and were you a fan of the show before becoming a part of it?

I was. I had just been cast as Bradford Meade in Ugly Betty. I think we’d made the pilot and I’d just come back. I think we were still waiting to see if the pilot was going to be picked up and this role came up. I went to see the casting people and got the role. As far as I knew, it was just one episode. I didn’t know that it was going to continue on right through to the end of the series. But that was it. And they were looking for someone to play an Englishman. Well, in the end, he mostly sort of has my accent more than an English accent now, but these things evolve.

But that’s how it happened. It really was just one of those things. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to stay and in the end in 2008 I went to London and played the lead in Spamalot on the West End for five months. They had to come to London to shoot scenes with me because I couldn’t take the time off to come back to Hawaii. Each step along the way, I haven’t know that I was going to be in it for the next season, but it just has turned out that way. So that’s good.

When did you start to discover how important your character was to the mythology of the show? Was it just as you were getting the scripts and reading them or did they ever pull you aside and explain their plan for your character?

They have never explained anything to me. I still don’t know if I’m a good guy or a bad guy. But I’ve had calls from publicists and people like that. I remember my publicist ringing me and screaming down the phone. I’d done this one scene in the back of a Bentley in a factory parking lot in Waikiki. They had a hose and they were spraying down the car trying to make it look like England. I came home and it went on air and this publicist girl that I had been working with rang me and she said, “You’re the man. You’re the one behind the whole thing.”

I said, “I can’t be. I’ve only done one scene, what are you talking about?”

And so, she sort of explained and it looked for a long time like I was. I still don’t know if that’s true.

You mentioned being a fan of the show. Do you go on websites and read theories or do you just take the information as it comes and try not to worry about it too much?

Well, I worry about it because I do think it effects how you play the role – knowing where you came from and where you’re going and things. And I find that disconcerting. But, at the same time, there isn’t anything I can do about it.

The writers and producers had a thing where people paid $35 a head and spent the day with them and they told them what they wanted to hear, a few weeks ago. It was written up in the press and I read that. During that, Jack Bender, one of the executive producers and one of the directors of the show, was laughing about the fact that I was particularly difficult about it. Most other actors just put up with it. But I keep on about it because “Why am I doing this scene? Why am I here? Where did I come from? Am I trying to kill this guy or am I here trying to save him? What am I doing?”

They tell you only just enough, on this show, for you to do the job. It has been a bit frustrating, I have to say. But, on the other hand, it’s funny and fun and it’s nearly over. It’s been a great ride.

Have you drawn any conclusions about Charles Widmore? How do you view the character?

As far as I know, I’ve finished on the show. But they’ve still got two more episodes to shoot. I don’t even know if they’re going to want me to go back or if that is it for me. And as I say it to you, I still don’t if I’m a good guy or a bad guy. That’s the truth about what I know about it.

I’d love to be able to tell you more. And I’m asked this all the time and sometimes people get very frustrated with me. And I sometimes come up with convoluted answers to try to help and end up with terrible things happening.

If you have a minute, I have an example. In London a couple of years ago when I’d gone across to there to do a miniseries, I was doing publicity for it and there was one of those junkets where the journalists came in out of the room and I sat in this room. For two hours, I sat there. At the last one, I was finished and they were finished and we were putting our coats on because it was cold and we were about to leave. As we were walking out the door, the woman said to me, “So tell me about Lost.”

And I said, “I can’t really tell you anything about Lost.”

She said, “Why not?”

I said, “Well, I sort of stopped watching it really.” I said it tongue-in-cheek. I said, “After you watch them walking through the jungle a thousand times, you sort of wonder why you’re watching it. Then a cloud came out of jungle, picked up an African American man, threw him against the tree and killed him. And I said to myself, ‘Well, I don’t think I should watch it anymore.’” That’s what I said, just joking and chuckling and walking down the hallway. The next day, the headline in that paper was: “Lost star commits career suicide.” So you’ve got to be careful what you say.

But there’s not much to say because they really don’t tell us, you know?

You mentioned that you think you might be done filming the show. Did you get a sense of closure in the episodes you filmed? Did you walk away feeling that if you didn’t come back your character’s story arc is complete?

No, but again, you’ll have to understand I only get to read the episodes that I’m in, so I don’t see any other ones. So anything that hasn’t been on air yet, I don’t know actually what happens in those episodes that I’m not in. So the honest answer to that is no, I didn’t get that feeling. In fact, I thought, “Gosh, if that’s it, I still don’t know if I’m a good guy or a bad guy, so I don’t know what it was all about.” I’m hoping that when I sit and watch it, and I am watching it, that when it comes to the end, it will all be clear. But at the moment, I have no idea.

David S. Lee played Young Charles Widmore on the show. Do you think he did a good job playing a younger you?

They wanted to know what I looked like when I was young, so I sent pictures of then. If you go online onto YouTube, you’ll see in 1979 I did a Schick razor commercial and I had long curly hair, sort of like an afro. So they got a guy that had long, curly hair to play me. I met him, but he was a bit distant with me. (Laughs.) I don’t know why.

But I don’t know whether that’s me. It’s very difficult to tell whether that’s you or not.

The battle between Charles Widmore and Benjamin Linus has become integral to the show’s mythology. What is it like doing those scenes with Michael Emerson, particularly the one you mentioned where they came out to London to film that confrontation in Widmore’s flat?

First of all, suddenly Charles Widmore had a beard because I was playing King Arthur and he had a beard.

Michael’s a very nice guy. Really. And we really enjoy it, actually, because it’s quite intense. The scenes are intense. Truthfully, he knows a bit more than I do because he’s a regular on the series and I’m more a recurring character, so he lives there and he’s more immersed in it. But still, I don’t think he’s much more aware of whether he’s the good guy or I am.

But all we do is we get in there and he’s got those eyes and he stares at me and I stare back at him and we just go for it. That part’s really fun. Getting the job is the work. Playing the character, you’d do it for nothing. It’s fun.

Is there a different vibe for you this season actually being on the island?

Not quite as much as you’d expect because I’m actually on Oahu when I’m shooting most of those scenes anyway. But I have to say that my feeling about going to Hawaii changed considerably when I went to the North Shore for the first time to do some of those scenes last season – when I was taken down the jetty and put on the submarine when I was thrown off the island and a couple of other scenes I did. When I got to see that part of the island, I started to fall in love with the place. I’m very sad that it’s over, from that point of view. It’s a very beautiful place to go.

Obviously, there is a big battle on the horizon between your character and the smoke monster character. Is there anything fans should be looking out for or things we can expect to see in the coming weeks?

I think just that. I’m hoping that it doesn’t end up being a damp squib. I’m concerned that fans might chase me down the street with meat cleavers if the questions aren’t all answered. But I have a feeling that they aren’t all going to be answered. So I’m not sure how it’s going to go.

Have you given any thought into how you would like the show to end or what questions you would like to see answered? Or is that not something you really worry about?

It isn’t really, to be honest. No, I don’t.

All I can say is it seems to be building towards some of a big event at the end and I don’t know what that event’s going to be. But it seems to be. But I can’t say anymore about that because that would be unfair. They’re so protective.

I was in the show The X-Files the last seven episodes playing The Toothpick Man. It was an interesting thing. We actually shot the final scene. They completely built the Oval Office and I was in the Oval Office with President Bush – they got that famous guy that’s a Bush lookalike and they cast him in it – and we did this scene, the end of The X-Files, which in the end they didn’t use. And I think they did seven different scenes like that and then decided which one to use so no one could guess how it was going to end. And I’m not sure that that’s not what they’re going to do here too. I don’t know that it is. So I think they’re being very careful to make sure that nobody knows how it’s going to end.

And I’ve talked to Matthew Fox, he doesn’t seem to know. If he doesn’t know, probably nobody does. Certainly Terry [O’Quinn] doesn’t know.

Do you and the other actors toss theories back and forth and try to figure this stuff out on your own?

It’s a little like working in an ice cream factory. You don’t probably eat that much ice cream when you do. I think when we’re finished, we’re happy to go and pour a glass of wine and talk about the football.

Do you get recognized a lot by fans because of Lost?

It’s interesting because when I played that character in Australia all those years, people used to hurl comments at me from cars and things. Now, they don’t do that so much because they’re not quite sure if this guy is likely to rip their head and do something dreadful to them. They tend to stand back with me a little bit with me now and I quite like that.

So playing these bad ass characters has helped you out a bit?

It does. It definitely does, in that way, yes.

What other projects do you have in the works? What’s on the horizon for you?

I just finished a movie called Earthbound with Kate Hudson and Kathy Bates and Whoopi Goldberg. And a couple other roles. They’re not huge roles, but they’re movie roles. I’m sort of hoping to move into that area a bit.

And I must admit, I’m actually very tired, so if I end up with a month or so off, it won’t be a bad thing. I’ve been to New Orleans three times and Hawaii three times in the last six weeks, so you get rather tired from it. I’m just recovering.

Have you put any thought into what types of roles you would like to play? Would you like to do something different?

Yes, I have. I would really love to do a sitcom. And I had a lot of fun when I did Spamalot in London. I don’t know if you ever saw the musical Spamalot, which was Monty Python, it was very, very funny and fun to do. I actually did a pilot for a sitcom a few years ago – I played a gay English butler – it looked like it might go, but it ended up not going. That’s something I’d love to do. But whether I get the opportunity is … it’s one of those things, I often listen to these actors talking about how they choose the roles they play. I’m always a bit bemused because I know how I choose mine – they’re the ones I’m offered. (Laughs.) “That means income, you know?” “Oh, okay.”

I think I have turned one or two roles down. I’ve got four sons and two of them are little. I really don’t want to play child molesters or those sorts of characters. So I have turned those sorts of roles down. But apart from that, usually the roles I play are the ones that I’m offered.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

I actually was quite good at selling cars. As quite a young man, my early 20s, I was the manager of a Nissan dealership in New Zealand. I was quite good at that and I didn’t mind it. I love cars, so I quite enjoyed that. Looking back, that’s probably what I would have done.

But apart from that, I have to admit once I started working as an actor, I have never regretted it. When they ask you to fill out the form that says occupation and I put “actor,” I love it.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

I played rugby as a sport and I played at just under the All Blacks level in New Zealand. I played for Auckland and for Wellington. That is one of my great passions. That might be something, I suppose.

There isn’t very much. Sadly, when you’ve been in the public eye for a long time, the public knows everything, even your age. I often meet people who hide how old they are, but I don’t have the option of that. They found out how old I was when I was young and it didn’t matter and they just add a year each year.

What does the future hold for you?

I don’t really know, to be honest. I think that’s one of the joys, though, of life. I think most people think that their safe when they’re employed by someone. They think life is safe. But life isn’t safe and in the business that I’m in – and you’re in, our business – you can be out of work tomorrow. It’s quite an exciting place to be. I don’t have any idea and that’s probably a good thing.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. The final season of Lost airs Tuesday nights on ABC, but you probably already knew that.

Mark Pellegrino is such
a big deal in Hollywood these days that people who see him on the street just want to walk up and touch him … then again, that could be because his god-like character Jacob on Lost can grant immortality to anyone he lays his hand on.

We recently sat down with Pellegrino to talk about playing a Christ-like figure on Lost, being a part of the pivotal rug peeing scene in the cult-classic film The Big Lebowski and his fondness for wiener dogs.

How did you get into acting and when did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

Kind of by accident. I took this commercial workshop, I don’t even know why, kind of as a lark and the guy who taught it thought I had something and set me up with an agent. I started going out on auditions not knowing what I was doing at all, but doing okay in spite of that. My agent decided I was green and needed to be tutored a little bit and set me up with a list of acting schools to go to, and I went to this one that was really cheap and near my house. It turned out to be one of the best acting schools in the West Coast. I got introduced to the craft and couldn’t turn back from there.

Were you able to work steadily early on or were there large stretches where you were unemployed?

Both. I started working early on, even though I didn’t quite know what I was doing, and there would also be some periods where I would go for a few months without any nibbles or auditions for work. It was like that for about four years where I would work and then a couple of months off, three months off, then work some more. Then, after that, it got a lot more consistent.

One of your early credits on IMBD lists you as playing yourself in Hulkamania 4. What exactly was Hulkamania 4 and what was your role in it?

I have no idea what that is. Those things on IMBD, I don’t know quite what they are. But that one, they must have used some footage or maybe some documentary stuff from the film No Holds Barred that I did way back when where I played Hulk Hogan’s little brother.

How was playing Hulk Hogan’s little brother in No Holds Barred? That must have been interesting.

It was pretty awesome. I was still learning and in the very, very early stages of learning about acting and I’m sure it shows, but professional wrestling had reached its peak I think at that time of popularity and it was huge. Vince McMahon, I think, sold the WWF right after that for like a billion dollars or some unheard of sum of money. And Hulk was at the top of his game, so I had seen him a lot on TV, especially after I got the part, I started watching wrestling a little bit more.

It was interesting working with him because he was actually kind of savvy and there was a scene where he had to get emotional and he really got emotional. You don’t expect that out of a professional wrestler. And he’s a nice, down-to-earth guy, which was pleasant since he was an over-the-top kind of guy when he was in the ring. He was very quiet and understated outside of it.

Jeff Bridges just won an Academy Award for Best Actor. You had a chance to work with Bridges on the Coen Brothers’ film The Big Lebowski. What was it like working with Bridges and the Coens and how did it feel to be a part of the pivotal rug-peeing scene?

You know, I’ve always loved Jeff’s work. Then when I got to work with him, I thought that he was an unsung genius. I know that word is thrown around a lot in Hollywood, but literally the guy is just such a great craftsman and so good at what he does. I couldn’t help myself sometimes in scenes just studying him, watching him work. It was pretty amazing.

And the Coen brothers are obviously great. One of them works with the actor and kind of works with you on how he wants the scene to go. And the other one kind of sets up the shot. Ethan would kind of talk to me about the scene; Joel would be doing his thing. Every once in a while, you’d get a little conference with the two of them, but not often. Mostly it was Ethan sitting there in the bathtub while I was dunking Jeff’s head in the toilet. Actually, not dunking his head in the toilet. He had a bad neck, so he had to do all that himself and I had to make it look like I was dunking him and holding him down.

Are you surprised at how enduring that movie has been? It’s become a cult classic and fans now hold annual Lebowski Fests.

In a way yes and in a way no because it’s one of the few movies that I’ve been in that I’ve actually watched more than once and have seen how it just gets better every time. You discover in it things that you didn’t see before for some reason. Like an onion, you keep peeling it away every time. So I can see from that. I don’t know what magic was in it that makes it that way, but it is that way and it’s deserved. It’s like in the top 50 cult films, right? Or top 10 maybe?

It’s great and all of the characters are so dynamic and so strong and so clear. Even when somebody like John Turturro comes on film for five minutes, he’s memorable.

We also wanted to ask you about Dexter. You played Paul Bennett, the abusive ex-husband of Rita …

I prefer to call myself the “misunderstood” ex-husband of Rita.

We never did get to see things from your perspective. Maybe you really were the good guy. You had this serial killer dating you ex and you were just trying to protect your family from him.

That’s it. That’s the way I looked at it. Once I got wise to him that something was up, I was the one who starts to turn things around. I just handled things a bit inappropriately, I guess. (Laughs.) I think getting drunk and trying to rape my ex-wife is a little inappropriate, but you know, I loved her.

There were definitely some great scenes with you and Michael C. Hall in that show.

Yeah, and what’s funny is for like the first couple episodes, I didn’t think he liked me. And I found out later that he didn’t think I liked him. We kind of avoided each other all of the time. We had such a contentious on-screen relationship that it seemed to be bleeding over into the everyday stuff. I think it was just both of us working off each other and thinking we were getting these things off the other because one day we were just both accidentally at craft service and started talking to each other. And I was like, “Oh my god, I thought you didn’t like me.” “I thought you didn’t like me.” “Oh geez.” He turned out to be the nicest guy on the planet. We talked a lot. From then on, it was very different, but those first couple of episodes were a little harrowing.

How did you land the role of Jacob on Lost? Were you a fan of the show before becoming a part of it?

You know, I never even owned a TV until a couple of years ago. So I rarely watch TV. I just don’t have time. And when I did get a TV, I borrowed it from my mom, this old like 1970s thing – not 1970s because I could hook a video up to it and I would just watch videos when I wanted to.

So I had read the treatment for Lost when they were about to do the pilot and I even went up for one of the parts; I don’t remember which one now. But it was one of the best treatments I had ever read. It was a total page turner. And I never watched the show at the time that I auditioned for [Jacob] and had no idea that the part I was going up for was such an important part. I just knew it was a guest star with a possible recurring theme to it.

The situation is – I guess people are so hot to get information from Lost that the sides you audition are not the sides that you work with. And the character is a different name, so if anything gets leaked out it’s kind of like a red herring. So I just auditioned this scene and did well on it and I thought, “I did well, that’s all I can do.” Didn’t find out how important is was until I actually landed on Oahu and started talking to people.

Finding out Jacob’s identity was one of the huge mysteries of Lost. When fans finally saw you in the season five finale on the beach talking to the man in black, it was a huge moment on the show. Were you aware when you were shooting that scene that it was going to be a big moment for the fans or was it just another day at the office?

Well, I did know by that point because we’d done that close to last in the shoot. So I did know at that point that it was a big revelation for people, but knowing that, I still tried to make it a day in the office so that I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by any of that information. Because there’s a lot of it. Every moment in this show seems to have almost Biblical proportions of subtext to it and meaning and history. Oddly enough, this sounds weird to say as an actor, in a weird way, I’m glad I didn’t know that because it makes things a lot easier.

Were you ever tempted to go back and try to find out as much info as possible or have you made the decision to not be aware of all of the subtext?

No, I’ve been watching the show and it does suck you in, man. I’ve just been watching it and seeing if I can figure anything out. I don’t necessarily watch it in order yet. I just happen to watch whatever shows we have on the DVD stuff and then I also see some of the shows that are coming out too. Then forming my opinion and seeing if I can guess right about my character and the fate of everybody.

Do they just send you your script and leave you to blindly read through it or if you have questions about your character, are you able to ask them? Or with the secrecy, do they keep you in the dark?

I don’t know how it is for other characters, but for me, I am in the dark. I read the script and if I have questions, hopefully I’m working with one of the executive producers who can actually say something about it. But sometimes you’re working with a director who is outside of the project. I don’t know how much of the story they know. I think they tend not to know to be honest with you. But they give really good adjustments and really good thoughts. I guess if Carlton Cuse isn’t too worried about it, then I’m not too worried about it and somehow we’re on the right track.

But Jack Bender, when I’ve worked with him, he’s said one or two things here or there that are little light bulbs. Then again, he’s one of the executive producers, so he probably knows where it’s going.

Did they give you any indication of how often you are going to be in the show or each time are you waiting to find out if you will be back again?

No, they do tell me. They didn’t tell me right at the end of the finale, but they did tell me a couple of months later how many shows I should expect to be in.

You were actually killed in last year’s finale, so at that point were you wondering if you would even be back?

I presumed that death didn’t necessarily mean anything on that show. And thank god I’m right.

I wasn’t sure. Everybody was saying I would be back. Being an actor, you never know what’s going to happen and you don’t put your eggs in a basket until you’ve signed it on the dotted line. I just said, “Okay, maybe. If it does, it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.” So it ended up that I’ve been back and it’s nice.

Your character’s interactions with Hurley have become a huge part of this season since he is the only person who can see you. When doing scenes with Jorge Garcia, it seems like Jacob is talking down to Hurley in a very calm and mannered way – almost like how you would address a small child. Was that a choice you made as an actor or were you instructed to use that particular cadence with Hurley?

Kind of both. It suggests in the scripts that I’m really centered and calm and unruffled. It’s kind of almost like Buddha-esque or Christ-like, without being archetypal. Just a simple person who I guess can see further than a lot of other people. So it has that element to it. Plus, with Jorge’s character, Jorge’s character is kind of a kid. He needs to be gently dealt with, I think.

It is fun to watch you two play off of each other – the way you address him and his excitement and jumpiness when dealing with you.

(Laughs.) He’s so funny. When I’m standing off-camera watching him, he just makes me laugh. He tries to hide that he’s freaked out or he tries to hide that he knows something, it’s sweet and kind of cute. And I can’t help but laugh. I think I’m ruining takes sometimes because I’m behind the camera laughing. But it’s all because it’s so sweet.

As you mentioned, there are themes of good and evil and there are many theories out there about what Jacob represents and if he is really a Christ-figure or truly good. What’s interesting is that you also play Lucifer in the show Supernatural. What has it been like to play both ends of the religious spectrum? And do you see Jacob as a savior for the island?

Well, first of all, I think somebody sees a really intense dichotomy in me to cast me as these types of characters and that’s true, I feel like I am extremes. So they’re recognizing something in me, I think. It’s interesting because they are both religious characters and both spiritual characters and oddly enough, there’s more in common I think with the Lucifer character and Jacob, the way they’ve written it in Supernatural, than there would be in the typical Lucifer and Christ-like figure.

In their version in Supernatural, he’s the most honest, sincere person there. To me, Lucifer is about justice – getting justice for something. I think it eventually expresses itself in a rather ugly way, which is still coming, I think. But he’s about justice. So there’s a tremendous amount of goodness, I think, that goes in all that darkness. Betrayed goodness in a way.

I think Jacob’s character, I don’t know what their end is in mind. I don’t know whether he’s going to be good or bad in the end. But good is a complicated thing, you know what I mean? Often times one does things for the good that seem really ugly in the moment. So there’s a lot of crossover in a way. These good characters that have such scope and these evil characters that have such scope, they’re capable of such complicated actions. I think they’re very similar in a lot of ways. But I do think the Lucifer character, there’s a lot more room to play and a sardonic sensibility out of it that isn’t there with Jacob.

Lost does love to play with the notion of good and evil. There is definitely a possibility that in the end we will find out that the Man in Black was more good than we realized and maybe Jacob wasn’t as good as we’ve though all along.

Well, you know, I think that question will be answered. (Laughs.)

What should fans be looking out for with Jacob then? Can you give us any indication of where things are headed with your character?

I can’t say anything. But, I think the questions people have about who this mysterious Man in Black is and questions they have about Jacob are going to be answered. I can’t give any spoilers and say how, but I’ve seen a little bit about how that’s going. It still doesn’t make me conclude one way or the other because I feel like every time I’ve read one of their scripts, I always get judo tossed on my head. Just as you think something’s one way, it goes another. And then, just as you’re adjusting to that, it goes in a completely different direction. I’m always surprised. And that’s good. That’s a good show that does that.

You and Michael Emerson had a very memorable scene together in last season’s finale. What is it like working with Emerson?

Well, my first experience was we all get around the set and we were just going to rehearse the scene where Michael comes in and sees that it’s me and he’s being prodded by Locke to kill me. He has this long speech where he basically talks about how I let him down and betrayed him. Usually, when you’re rehearsing something, people just kind of say the words and you don’t know what you are going to do yet and you are kind of walking aimlessly around the set just talking to each other. But he came in and the first time he did it, it was fully realized. If you put a camera on it, it would have been perfect. It kind of blew me away.

It actually drew me in every time he did his stuff. He drew me in and I lost myself in what he was doing, which helps you as an actor because you act in snatches. You act in like three-minute pieces and one of the hardest things to keep is your focus. Thank god you have somebody who is working with you that is so interesting and so alive that you can’t help but be focused on them. And that’s kind of the way that scene was for me.

He made me feel all kinds of things. There were so many different takes of the last line that I say to him that he brought out all kinds of different things in me. It was a pleasure working with him. I thought he was amazing.

That last line: “What about you?” can definitely be interpreted differently depending on your inflection when delivering it.

Oh yeah, I think they kind of stuck with something very sympathetic and that plays off in later episodes. One I just saw as a matter of fact where Ilana is going to kill Ben and this other character who can also see dead people [Miles] and says: “No Jacob was hoping he was wrong about you the whole time.” I didn’t know any of that information.

I wasn’t privy to this information but they took the take that was more sympathetic like I was brokenhearted, which he did break my heart on a number of takes. Some takes he made me mad and I thought he was self-absorbed and narcissistic and a couple of those lines came out that way. Like I was slapping him. And a couple came out like I was challenging him. So you never know on a show like that what they are going to take. But I’m glad they took the sympathetic one. I think that makes it more like the carpenter Christ who knows you and knows what you’re suffering and feels for that at the expense of his own interest in life. Because I bare my chest to him. I’m right there. I let him kill me. I’m strong enough to not let him kill me and I do.

Have you put any thought into how you would like to see things end for Jacob or directions you would like to see the character head? Or things you would like to find out about the character?

You know, a lot of those questions were answered for me in the last thing I did. I still don’t know where it’s going to go, but I tell you I’d like to be good. I’m so often twisted up characters and at best misunderstood guys doing the wrong thing, but often times I’m a bad guy and I like the notion of being a good guy. Especially a good guy of such stature. To be able to say that I played Christ, in a way, would be a pretty phenomenal thing.

What has the fan reaction been like? Do you get recognized a lot? We would imagine a lot of fans are excited to see Jacob out on the street.

That’s exactly what it is. It’s interesting because that’s my name, that’s my personality, that’s who I am to them is Jacob. It’s not even like: “Hey, what’s your name? I love you on Lost.” It’s not: “Hey Mark Pellegrino from Lost.” It’s: “Jacob! Jacob! We love you. Oh my god!” And they want to kiss me and hold me and take pictures with me. It’s really sweet.

At this point, we would imagine they want to touch you too since we all found out that getting touched by you will protect them. They probably want to shake your hand to make sure they don’t die.

That may be unconsciously going through some of their heads for sure.

What other projects do you have in the works? What’s on the horizon for you?

Supernatural, I’m still not done with that. Still not done with Lost, so that’s what I’m working on right now. And I’m writing stuff right now. I started a little production company, so I’m hoping to produce a couple things – something my wife wrote and something I’m finishing up. Then it’s just taking it one project at a time. Pilot season is here and I’m still trying to squeeze in a couple of pilot auditions and see if something lands from there.

Is there a particular direction you would like to see your career head or types of projects you would like to do?

I’m kind of a big fan of the horror genre. Maybe it’s for me to write and stuff like that. But I’ve always wanted to do something in the horror vein because that’s the hardest, most extreme thing to act for real. To do some really good memorable horror movie would be amazing. And there’s been some good ones lately – 28 Days Later. They get a really good cast of people around and it’s really good. I’d like to be a part of something like that. I like that stuff. I wouldn’t mind playing the dark hero too.

Would you want to be one of the people being chased in a horror movie or would you want to play the villain?

It depends on the villain. It depends on how interesting the villain is. But even people being chased, it’s such a huge, huge acting job. That is an exhausting, exhausting, almost Shakespearean level of work if you are really taking it seriously. It almost never really is, but when it is, it’s amazing when it happens. Even just the psychological type thrillers like Rosemary’s Baby where there’s a great story about ambition where John Cassavetes sells his wife out to be a success. That’s a beautiful, dark, twisted story. I like stuff like that.

So you would also be interested in playing an edgy antihero too?

The reluctant hero who has heroic qualities. Being a lover of history, it amazes me to see the mediocre to average men who rose to the occasion in the Revolutionary War and Civil War to be great. Revolutionary War, I think many of those men were great to begin with.

But in the Civil War certainly, there were people who were not successful in life that became giants during that conflict. And it took that fire that they had to pass through to make them great. I like that – the person who doesn’t know himself going through some kind of obstacle and becoming great as a result. That’s kind of cool to me.

We heard that you participate in a number of sports, including martial arts, kickboxing, professional Thai boxing, Judo, Karate and Ju-Jitsu. Do you actually compete or are these just ways for you to unwind?

I don’t compete with it. I taught Taekwondo for probably about three years and I haven’t done Taekwondo in probably about 15 or 20 now. I did Thai boxing for a couple of years. I studied with some great people. And it was a way of exercising and relaxing. I like getting in the ring and boxing, but it’s such a damaging sport to your body, especially at my age. I can’t do it competitively without suffering a lot.

But I used to train with great people and used to spar around with some really, really great martial artists. I was really fortunate.

So you have no desire to step into a UFC ring any time soon?

No. Oh boy. No, those guys are insane. But I have started studying Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. I’m really fascinated by that, such a great style. I love the UFC. The UFC is my favorite thing now.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

That’s a good question. You know, I’m very interested in politics. I love politics. But politics used to be the realm of ideas and now it’s the realm of criminals and perverse folks. You can’t gain an upper hand there or let an idea get in the air in a place like Washington or Sacramento for that matter. My heart would be in doing something like that, but I think it would leave me soulless.

The third choice I would have for a career is teacher, maybe. Maybe I would teach history.

High school or college?

Probably college because you could do a bit more, I would imagine. But it’s like John Adams said, “Teaching is the eternal profession,” because you never know where your influence is going to stop. I teach one person and that person influences 50 other people and that person influences 50 other people and the information and insight that you gave them can go on for an eternity and change lives and that’s pretty amazing.

I teach acting at a theatre company out here and me and my wife also teach independently. So I have an opportunity there since acting is not just a singular subject. It deals with so many of our values that I have an opportunity to talk to people and challenge them in a lot of ways. A lot of people have changed as a result of being challenged.

Have you run into a lot of people who come in and think they are going to just become an actor right away?

Oh yeah, there’s tons of people out there, young folks that don’t understand that acting is a craft because unfortunately in Hollywood you can see people getting in the business, going to the right parties and somehow making it. Or having something in their personality that makes them interesting enough to work for a while.

But in the end, to me, the people that endure are the people who have craft, so it is tough teaching kids, teaching young folks that have entirely different motivations for being in the business, like I did. I liked a lot of women and money like anything that a 20 year old wants that doesn’t really mean anything in the end. And I had to be introduced to craft and mentored the way they do. And nowadays, they don’t have parents really helping them or tutoring them so you kind of become a surrogate parent in a way and give them values and say, “You know what? It’s important to work for what you want.” So I do confront that a lot.

Tell us something most people don’t know about you.

I like the color pink. (Laughs.)

I don’t think people would know that I love nature. I was going to be a marine biologist, actually. I went to school studying that stuff at first. I love the ocean and love nature.

What else? I think people might know that I love to read. And I talk to my dogs like they’re my three-year-old kids. “My little Frankie. There he is right there. Hi buddy. What’cha doing?”

What kind of dogs do you have?

I have two Dachshunds – a boy and a girl, Frankie and Johnny. Johnny is the girl, she’s a long hair and Frankie is a short hair. Just adorable, he’s my little boy. He’s really quiet and sincere and just a little love bug, aren’t you buddy?

Do you ever put them in outfits?

My wife does. In fact, when I got home from Lost this last Saturday, she had them both in sweaters. He was in a brown sweater and she was in a pink sweater, with a hoodie. I had like an Army jacket for him that I put on him once when he was a little puppy. But she is the dresser, not me.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. The final season of Lost airs Tuesday nights on ABC, but you probably already knew that.

It’s safe to say that
anyone subjected to boring orientation videos on the first day of a new job has undoubtedly wished they were watching something half as interesting as the Dharma initiative videos featuring Dr. Pierre Chang. That’s because pockets of energy and time-traveling bunnies beat out retirement planning and breakroom etiquette any day of the week.

Playing Dr. Chang on Lost is François Chau, an actor with nearly 30 years in the business. We recently talked to Chau about working on such a hit show, his bowling prowess and the realization that Dr. Chang is really kind of an asshole.

How did you get into acting and when did you decide this is what you wanted to do for a living?

I became interested when I was in high school. I went to an all-boy prep school and by about junior year I was trying to figure out a way to meet girls, so I went to a girl’s school and auditioned for shows there. I started doing them and I kind of got hooked. From then on, I went to university and then came out to LA to try my luck.

What was it like starting out? Were you one of those people that were able to work pretty early on or were there long stretches of unemployment?

No, you know what; I was one of the lucky ones. I’ve been making a living at it for almost 30 years now, so when I came out to LA pretty much I got a commercial agent and then I started doing some commercials. I pretty much started working from then on. Nothing too steady at first, but enough to keep me going. After a few years, I started doing a lot of TV shows and stuff and have been doing that pretty much ever since.

One of your first roles was the voice of Quick Kick on G.I. Joe. How did that come about?

They were auditioning guys for the new character Quick Kick that they were coming up with. All the characters had their own little specialties and Quick Kick was a former Hollywood stunt man. (Laughs.) And he was supposed to do all these cheesy impressions so I went in there and did my cheesiest you know whatever they had, like John Wayne and all that stuff. I mean it was pretty bad, actually it was supposed to be bad. That’s how I got the gig.

You played Shredder in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie as well.

Yeah, I did the second one. Actually, my friend James Saito was The Shredder in the first one. And then they did the second one. They changed the whole cast and I’m not sure why, but anyways they were looking for a new guy so I auditioned and I got that. Yeah, that was pretty fun. It was very popular then, almost 20 years ago. Most of the movie, all you could see was my eyes because I was wearing that helmet that covered most of my face, but kids still recognized me. I met some little kid and he was all like: “Oh my god, it’s you!” and I said, “How do you know it’s me, all you could see is my eyes?” It’s amazing what these kids can pick up.

They’ve also all seen it a hundred times at that point, too.

Exactly.

You’ve also had guest roles on a number of memorable TV shows like Baywatch, McGyver, ER, Melrose Place, Walker, Texas Ranger and 24. Do you enjoy these guest spots on shows and the variety of work they offer or is that just how your career has worked out?

It’s kind of both. After I finished college, most of my friends went to New York to do live theater and so forth. But I knew I could never make a living doing live theater, so I came out to LA to do film and TV. Once I started doing it, I really, really loved doing it. I mean not just the acting. For some reason, I loved to go to work, be on the set and hang out to see what everyone else was doing and just listen. And I’ve never, so far anyway, it hasn’t gotten tiring to me. So every time I get a job, on a guest spot or doing a couple weeks on a feature or something, it’s great. I love going to work, hanging out and just doing my thing. When I was young, I think my first gig was Hill Street Blues and I played a gang leader. From then on, I’ve played quite a few gang leaders and as I got older I kind of got promoted to the boss guy in the Armani suit, you know, the drug lord guy. So I did a lot of guest spots doing that. Later on I started doing work as cops and doctors and stuff, but mostly my stuff has been the bad guys.

Many actors say it’s always more fun to play the villains. Is that true for you?

Actually, no. Whatever I do, it’s fun. For me, as long as I’m working, that’s pretty fun.

You played Mr. Cho in an episode of Alias. What it was like being on that show and did that have anything to do with you getting cast on Lost or was it just a coincidence that you worked on that J.J. Abrams show as well?

Well, when I did Alias, the casting director was April Webster and she was also casting Lost. I’d known her for years; she’d cast a couple of things before that. So I don’t think working on Alias had anything to do with me getting the job on Lost. Just the fact that I knew April and she brought me into Lost, that’s how I got the Lost gig. Alias was fun, before getting on the show I always taped it and watched it and I was like, “Hey I’ve got to get on this show one of these days.” When I got the call, I was like, “Hey, alright!” And I got to work with Isabella Rossellini, which was pretty amazing. I would have paid them to do the gig.

Was that the case with Lost too? Were you actually a fan of Lost before you came on it?

In the first season, I watched the pilot and the first couple of episodes and I thought it was pretty interesting. But then I missed a couple of them and it’s a show that if you miss, you’re sort of playing catch up the rest of the time. My schedule was kind of busy on and off and I missed a bunch of them, so I sort of stopped watching them for a while because I didn’t know what was going on anymore. And then once I got the job; even then, I didn’t start watching them faithfully until – I hate to say this – but probably about the third season where I would watch it because I got caught up in it, but also because people would start asking me a lot of questions. I kept saying, “Aw jeez, I don’t know who that character is” or “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” After a while I thought I better bone up on this so I don’t sound like an idiot when these fans start asking me stuff. So, pretty much from the third season I’ve been pretty faithful to it.

When you came on the show in season two you were used to further the mythology of the show and your appearance when you’re in the orientation video was a big moment for the fans. What did they tell you before you did the orientation video? Did they tell you anything about the character or did you just come in and they told you what to do?

No, they didn’t tell me anything. The audition was basically the orientation film. It was like a two or three page monologue. I got the pages and I was like, “Wow,” because I usually try to memorize all my stuff for when I go in but this was like three minutes of just nothing but me yapping away. I tried to memorize it and I got in there and went through it and after I finished it I was like, “Hey wow, I got through it.”

To this day, I suspect it’s one of the reasons they cast me is because I was one of the few guys who memorized it and got through it all. I think it was just supposed to be just a one-shot gig and that was it. And speaking of Alias, we filmed it on the set of Alias, the first orientation film. We came in at the end of the day after Alias finished shooting and then the crew stayed on and we shot the little orientation film and I thought that was it. But then a couple months later they called and said, “Hey, we’re gonna add some more stuff” and then after that it was more and more stuff, which was fine with me.

Each time you came in, did you think it was your last shot or at some point did they pull you aside and let you know they were going to be using you more down the road?

Season five was when they called and said, “We’re going to do something with this character and we’re going to guarantee at least seven episodes in season five.” I was very happy to hear that. But before that I think I did two or three episodes per season of just the orientation films.

I kind of got an inkling that it might be something more when I showed up on the set in Hawaii and they gave me the script the night before and it was another orientation film but the name was totally different. I think I started out as Doctor Candle and then one time I was Doctor Wickman and I thought, “Wow, this is interesting. I have no idea what’s going on but maybe they’ll keep giving me stuff with different names and things and we’ll see happens.” Yeah, I think up until I got the second character I thought, “Hmm, this gig might last longer than I thought it would.” Even now, they call me and they give me maybe a two or three week warning. They’ll give me certain dates and say, “Hey, in between these dates we’re probably going to use you for a couple days so keep it open” and that’s how it’s worked ever since.

Season five must have been rewarding for you because we actually got to see what your character was like outside of the orientation videos and to see his relationship with Miles develop. Was that a fun season to do?

Yeah, it was great, it was very fun. And the character, I guess I don’t know what they thought of, but in the early orientation films it was pretty much straight-forward instructional video, so that’s how I did it. My feelings of the character were kind of popular because people read into it what they want to so different people will see the video and they’ll think of the character in a certain way while other people will look at it and think of it in a totally different way. But when it came out of the orientation videos and I actually got to do some scenes with other characters and then the storyline with being the father of Miles and all that stuff came up, it was great.

But I was kind of bound by the way they wrote the character. The first couple of scenes I was reading and I thought, “I didn’t realize Dr. Candle was such an asshole. Wow, how come he’s so mean and sort of a jerk?” Later on you find out a little more and he’s not that much of a jerk, but that wasn’t my first choice in terms of how the character was going to be played. It was just sort of handed to me and I went with it. It was great. And it was great finally working with other cast members and another actual person in a scene. Before, I just flew in, did my little video on the set in the morning and then finished and flew out the next day. I didn’t see anybody. But season five was fun.

“Some Like It Hoth” must have been particularly fun for you.

It was great working with Ken and Jorge. Those guys are a blast.

Your character also had a little more of a sense of humor in that episode. He was still kind of an asshole, but he was a little more playful.

Yeah, there was a little glimpse in there, but the rest of the time he was still running around ordering people around, yelling at people and was pretty much the Dr. Chang we’ve come to know and love.

Will we be seeing more of your character this season? Will we find out about the different names and what happened to him after “The Incident”? Will that be paid off or do you even know at this point?

I have no idea. If you’ve been watching this season, they have the parallel universe storyline going on where the plane landed and they never got to the island. I’ve been watching it and one of the fun things is they are putting in either one scene or little cameos with all of these old characters that died or whatever and put them into the parallel season as different – well, I guess the same character, but in a different setting. They’re not the same character they were before and they do different things. I watched last week where the character of Keamy, the bad guy from season four who was on the freighter, showed up as a gangster or something. So I think they are doing that with a whole bunch of characters. And I do make an appearance coming up in I think episode 10 for a little bit. But other than that, I’m not sure.

In episode 10, you show up in the parallel universe?

Yes.

If you are not on the island, it could be really interesting to see how things play out with you and Miles.

I was hoping that they would do something because they had set up this whole thing with Miles being his son and all that stuff that they would do something to kind of close it up, but I’m not sure. They have so many things to put a ribbon on. I’m not sure if they’ll get to everything. But hopefully.

We still have questions about your character, so we hope they find the time to explore your character more.

I have questions too. I would love to know about the different characters, different names and stuff. Maybe they’ll come up with something to satisfy us all.

You touched on this a bit before, but playing Dr. Chang and appearing in the orientation videos, we would imagine you had a lot of fans coming up and asking you questions because in the show, your character would have the answers. But as an actor, you wouldn’t really know anything. Was that something you were getting a lot?

Once the character became kind of popular, people would come up to me in the grocery store and stuff and say, “Hey, I love your show, you’re great.” Then they would start the questions with what’s going on with the plotline and who’s doing what. Some people would start telling me what their thought was about what was happening. But when they asked me, I usually don’t know any information. I usually gave them the old “Well, it might be this, it might be that, but I can’t really tell you because that would give away a lot of stuff.” But mostly, it’s just been news to me as the people watching it and actually, they probably know more about all that stuff than I do. The diehard fans, they know every little – what the numbers mean and who did what and in which episode Kate did this thing which mirrors later this episode where this and that happened. I mean, really, they spend a lot of time going over this stuff. People tell me stuff and I go, “Oh, that’s right, that’s true. I didn’t realize that.”

Usually, I’m in the dark. In the beginning, I would fly to Hawaii and they would give me the script the night before I was going to shoot. It was the orientation films, which was just a lot of two-page monologues. I had a hard time just getting it down. So finally I said to them, “Listen, if we’re going to keep doing this, you’ve got to get me more time and get me the script at least a few days before so I can have a better chance at learning it.” So they started doing that, but even then, I don’t know anything until I get the script two or three days before we start shooting.

Are you surprised by the level of fan excitement? It must be great on one level, but it would also be a bit strange, we would imagine.

Sort of yes and no. I am surprised at how popular it is, not just in the states. I get emails daily from like Asia and Eastern European countries that I guess are just getting the new shows or whatever. It is surprising to me how far reaching it is. But the fans, the ones that I’ve met, have all just been really, really nice and really great. I’ve never had any kind of weird situation or anything come up.

A couple summers ago, they invited me to this Lost convention in England. Going over there, I was a little apprehensive because, like you said, I didn’t know what to expect or how the fans were or so forth. I went up there for the weekend and it was a really, really great experience because those fans were just totally, totally nice and generous. They just wanted to hang out with you and talk about the show and ask what’s going on and stuff like that. By the end of the weekend, I felt kind of bad because I didn’t get to hang out with everybody and I felt kind of guilty because people paid a lot of money to be there. So I said, “I’ve got to try to hang out as much as I can,” but I just couldn’t get through everybody. Maybe next time, I don’t know.

There is a Star Trek quality to Lost, where 20 years from now they might still be having these conventions and still asking you come out to do appearances. It seems to have that enduring quality.

It is very Star Trek like. It doesn’t seem to be like a passing phase or where it’s very popular now, but maybe in a few years nobody will remember it. There will be fans watching this or re-watching it for a long time.

Have you put any thought into the ending of the show? Obviously, you don’t know how it will end, but is there a way you would like to see the show end?

No, not in terms of, like you say, “This is what I’d like to see happen.” Part of the big thing about the show, at least for me, is that the writers do come up with very clever stuff. And one of the things that gets me is it’s been on for five seasons now and I still am not quite sure if from the beginning they had a big kind of general outline of the whole show, how they wanted it to be and as the season goes along they’ll plug in things here and there to keep it going. Or if they don’t have anything and they’re just writing as they go along and seeing what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes I think that because they come up with stuff out of nowhere and I think, “Wow, what the heck is this?” Other times, I’ll see an episode and go, “Hey, wait a minute. They set this thing up two seasons ago and now it’s paying off.”

That’s one of the great things – I still don’t know if they’re flying by the seat of their pants or if they’ve got the whole thing worked out from the beginning and they knew exactly how they wanted it to end from the time it first started. I’ve got a feeling it’s a little bit of both. I do think that they have a general shape of the thing and as they go along, they’ll change things here and there. But they’re pretty well sticking to what they started out with, I think. Then again, I could be wrong.

You recently played a bowler on Gary Unmarried. Do you actually bowl in real life? If so, are you as good as your on-screen counterpart?

(Laughs.) I start out good and it’s not just with bowling where I’ll start out doing pretty well, but then as I go along, instead of getting better, I usually get worse for some reason. My friend who used to be an avid golfer wanted me to get into golf and I said, “Okay, I’ll try it out.” I played with him a couple of times and I would start out great, then as we kept playing, I would just get worse and worse for some reason. I’m not sure why. But I am a good bowler at first, let’s put it that way.

The Gary Unmarred thing was great for me. I guess, it must be my personality, but people always think of me as this serious actor, maybe because I always play the bad guy. I’m always killing people or I get killed and stuff. I never get a chance to do like the Gary Unmarried stuff. So when it comes along, it’s a blast to do.

I saw on one of these blogs, someone was saying, “Man, I hate it when I’m used to seeing somebody do a certain character and all of the sudden they pop up in something else and it takes me out of it totally,” and the example she gave was she’s used to seeing me on Lost and being kind of the bad guy on other shows and all of the sudden, she sees me as this bowling guy on Gary Unmarried and that threw her a loop. She couldn’t get over it.

What would you be doing for a living if you never got into acting?

That’s a hard question because a lot of times I think, “Boy, I wish I could do something else besides acting” because all actors are a little insecure as they’re searching for their next jobs, so I’m always thinking, “Hmm, I wonder what I can do?” But honestly, and sadly, I don’t think I can do anything else.

I’m a pretty good handyman kind of guy. I watch a lot of these HGTV shows and I do a lot of stuff for my friend and around the house. So maybe I could be a carpenter or maybe a handyman guy.

You could become the host of one of those handyman shows.

I always wanted to be Norm Abram. He had this show where he would build a chest of drawers or something and he’d say, “Oh, come into my workshop,” and he’d open his barn and his workshop is like 50,000 square feet of just every machine available. And I thought, “Man, well yeah, if I had that, I could build that chest.” (Laughs.) But that sort of seems like something I wouldn’t mind doing.

We would watch that show, but unfortunately it would really upset that one Internet commenter who is used to seeing you on Lost and playing bad guys.

(Laughs.) “What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be doing that. You’re supposed to have a gun or something.”

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. The final season of Lost airs Tuesday nights on ABC, but you probably already knew that.

From the moment he first arrived on screen claiming to be an innocent balloonist marooned on the island, Benjamin Linus has been an unstoppable force on Lost. While normally depicted as a cold and calculating villain, it now seems that Linus is the only character who can bring the Oceanic Six back to the island, saving humanity in the process.

Playing this complex and captivating character is Michael Emerson, a stage actor who made a name for himself on television by playing serial killer William Hinks on The Practice. We recently caught up with Emerson to talk about the complexities of Lost, the lighter side of Benjamin Linus and having microwavable food thrown at your head.

How did you get into acting and when did you decide it’s what you wanted to do for a living?

I got interested in it when I was a kid. The earliest memory I have of an urge to be on stage was I saw a kid that went to my church doing the school play at the high school and I just thought he was so great and so charismatic. I thought, “If I could ever be half that cool, I would want to do that.” So I studied it as an undergraduate in college and then I lost track of it for a long time. I fell into another line of work – I became a magazine illustrator and I did that all through my 20s. I didn’t become an actor again until my middle-30s. So I’ve come back to it late and I guess I’m still trying to make up for lost time.

Was acting something that you just couldn’t let go? What made you decide to go back to it?

I knew that my life would be in the arts and I had skills and sensibilities that lent themselves to the theatre or the graphic arts or what have you. But the longer I pursued the graphic arts, I realized that I was happy to be pursuing a creative field, but I wasn’t enjoying the process of it very much – the lonely hours hunched over a drawing table, the solitary nature of it. So I was glad when I got back to the theatre and I realized that the same set of tools could be brought to bear but in a somewhat more celebratory and social work setting. I felt that I then found the best of both worlds. So the theatre seems to work fine for me.

One of your first big television roles was playing serial killer William Hinks in The Practice, which earned you an Emmy. What was it like playing that role and how much of an impact do you think that character had on your acting career, including Damon Lindelof and Carlton’s Cuse’s decision to cast you as Benjamin Linus on Lost?

It was the first character of that sort I had ever played, whether it was on stage or in front of the camera. As you can see, it has colored all of the work I’ve done subsequently on TV for sure and possibly in the cinema as well. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It was a departure for me. I had always played mostly comical characters previous to that, but now that sort of positioned me into the “damaged and dangerous” kind of category, which is fine with me.

They continue to give me interesting characters and certainly Ben is a great and complicated and mysterious and wonderful undertaking. But it’s a type of playing that I wouldn’t have predicted would be my meat and potatoes and I wonder if there will be more of it in my life or if I’ll find a way into some other sort of type of character.

Lindelof said in interviews when Sayid captured Ben and first introduced the audience to your character, the plan was always to have Ben eventually revealed to be the leader of The Others, but the writers had a “trap door” in place to have Ben end up as just another Other in case the actor who played him wasn’t working out. When you were originally cast for that three-episode arc, did you know that was the case?

No, but that was my sort of intuition. Look, when you take a guest spot on TV, every actor sort of has that tiny kernel of hope at the back of his mind that you’re going to play this character so well that they’re going to figure out a way to keep you and that happened for me on Lost. And then, in hindsight, you say, “What was the dynamic of that exactly?” And I think it is just as you described – a sort of an onscreen screen test. They had written this character. They thought they liked it, they thought they would do things with it, but they were going to wait and see how it played out. Luckily it played out well with me with my portrayal, so they kept me in it and they ran with it. It was a kind of an audition that I passed and I’m glad to have passed it.

At what point did you start to get the sense that Benjamin Linus was going to be a big deal on the show?

In the early going, I don’t know, in the third or fourth episode that I was in when Sayid was still pressuring me to reveal my secrets or who I represented or who I was working for, it came to me one day, “Wouldn’t it be a neat twist if instead of being some henchman that I was actually the guy in charge?” And I actually mentioned it to a director on whatever episode it was and he said, “I can’t really discuss that with you.”

And then I thought, “Well, if I’m not on to something that’s true, I’m on to something that should be true or would be cool if it was true.” It turned out it was true.

So did you decide to play the character like that at that point?

I always played the character sort of the same, which was give up as little as possible, play it as earnest and let the business of who he was or what he was up to be a contract between the writers and the viewers.

Lindelof said that what sealed the deal for him and Carlton Cuse was the way you delivered the line “You guys got any milk?” during the chilling breakfast scene with Locke and Jack.

(Laughs.)

It’s the first time we see how cold and calculating the character can really be and your delivery of that line is perfect. Ben has had many more bone-chilling lines since then and you have a tendency to deliver his more disturbing lines perfectly calm, which makes him creepier than if you were adding inflection to his voice.

Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

How did you come up with that? How did you decide to deliver his lines without any emotion?

I learned it on stage, where I learned everything that I do as an actor. I have played some villains, Shakespearean villains like Iago, and I learned that something that scares an audience is when the subtext of a line reading does not match what the line says. In other words, if someone is inappropriately cool in a hot situation, it unnerves the audience. They’re suspicious. To say the right words, but in the wrong tone is a good tool. It sends a signal. It suggests to us that this person doesn’t think like I do. Either this person is warped or crazy or this person is up to something.

With Ben, you certainly get the impression that there is a lot going on below the surface and that he’s constantly up to something.

And I think that’s an important effect to achieve in our work, at least with a character like Ben. One of the things the audience longs for is a sense of a character’s inner-life. And if you play a character that gives up little, then you want to suggest or promise that it’s not because there’s nothing to give up. It’s because they choose to keep it to themselves. It’s much more interesting.

When Ben was first introduced, it seemed quite clear that he was a villain on the show, but as the story has unfolded, we’ve become more sympathetic to him. The scene last year when Keamy killed Ben’s daughter in cold blood right in front of his eyes was truly heartbreaking and it showed just how vulnerable and human Ben actually is. Do you think of Ben as a villain? Do you think that as he says he is, he’s actually one of the good guys? How do you see the character?

I probably view him a little more sympathetically then most of the people who watch the show, but partly that’s craft and partly it’s that I really think he’s a more ambiguous creature than some people do. I think it’s entirely possible that he ends up being one of the heroes of the show because we don’t know what the stakes are for him. We don’t know who he’s fighting and for what. Maybe if we knew, we would admire his steadiness and his relentlessness.

And he definitely thinks that he’s right.

That’s certainly true. That’s safe to say. Ben believes pretty much everything he says and he’s not much of a liar really. He’s a manipulator, but he doesn’t tell that many lies. And he really hasn’t hurt that many people, in the present day at least.

We saw his honesty again in last week’s episode when Jack attempted to defend him and Ben admitted that he hired the lawyer who was attempting to prove that Kate isn’t Aaron’s mother.

Ben is nothing if not practical. He’d already gotten what he needed from that play, so why hide it? It’s a new deal now, they’re on the docks. So we need to talk frankly and they need to know the score. Or at least the part of the score that Ben is willing to reveal.

But this business of Ben becoming more complicated and less patently villain, that’s part of the whole mechanics of the show in general. The show started out to seem like a very simple story and as it’s gone it’s grown in complexity and ambiguity, as have most of the characters. All of those stereotypes seem to be in Lost to be broken down and reconfigured and recontextualized. And they’re great at that.

Your character has had some truly memorable interactions, particularly Locke, Jack and Charles Widmore. Do you have a favorite actor to work with on the set? Is there a particular character that if you see Ben has a scene with him you really look forward to it?

When I see that Terry [O'Quinn] and I are on the call sheet together, I know that it’s going to be a good day’s work. It’s going to be well played and it’s also going to be a fast and easy and lighthearted day because I think the Ben and John Locke scenes are brilliantly written and their dialogue or their dance is near the heart of the story of Lost. And we just work so well together. We’re of similar ages and similar craft and similar attitude about our work, so they are effortless days, they are carefree and the product always seems to turn out great.

Ben is definitely in Locke’s head, which is always great too.

Yeah. Well each of them is the nut the other cannot break somehow. They’re like irritants to each other and yet brothers in some strange way.

Earlier this season, you got a Hot Pocket thrown at your head when you spooked Hurley. How tough was it to keep a straight face during that scene?

Well, we did a lot of takes of it as you can imagine trying to get the Hot Pocket right. Some of them were too dry, some of them had way too much pizza sauce in them and they blew up like all over the place, so that was hilarious. Then it takes 10 minutes to get your straight face back on. But yeah, it was an interesting evening’s work. And, of course, they cut my deadpan response, which was: “Now that’s just a waste of a Hot Pocket.” (Laughs.) Which I thought was a classic downbeat Ben dry read, but they cut it.

They give Ben a lot more funny lines then the audience ever sees because that’s the first thing they’ll cut of Ben is when he’s being funny.

That’s too bad because he actually is a very funny character.

He’s very witty, I think. (Laughs.)

There are countless websites devoted to analyzing Lost and coming up with theories about the show. As an actor on the show, do you try to figure out what it all means or do you just focus on the script in front of you and focus on that day’s work?

We do both but like the viewers we’re sort of watchers of the show too. And as readers of the scripts, we’re continually trying to figure out what’s going on, where it’s headed or “Does this mean what I think it means?” We have those discussions on the set. Some people are more interested in that than others. I mean, Jorge [Garcia] is always a good one to talk about “All right man, where’s this thing going and what do you think?” because he keeps track of all of the most bizarre theories about the show and he’s also a sharp reader of the script. He can sort of read the mind of the writers a little bit, so sometimes he has a great idea of where a thing is leading.

Which is interesting too since the writers have said that his character a lot of times stands in for the audience – that he is used to represent what the audience is thinking.

He is. He is us if we were in that situation. Bewildered, bemused, out of place, ill-equipped, all of that. He’s an earthling amongst aliens.

Your wife is a huge fan of the show and she even played your mother in a flashback episode. Does she try to get inside information from you about the show?

No, she tries to get me to shut up. She’s a purist, you know? She doesn’t want to know anything before she witnesses it in the official and legal telecast. So I have to kind of be quiet. I’ll come home and say, “You’re never going to believe what I did today.”

And she’ll say, “Shut up! Shut up!”

Obviously, you don’t know what the writers have in store for your character or the show next season, but how would you like to see Lost end and how would you like to see things end for Ben?

I don’t know that Ben will end up being any different when this is all said and done than he has been right along. It may be that Ben is unchanged. We may just, because of circumstances that the writers create, we may just come to see him differently. The change may be in the viewer, not in the character.

The end of the whole story, the final conclusion – I hope it’s sort of contextual. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a thing that was in plain sight all along. I hope that it’s a thing where we go, “Oh my god, I should have known. It was there all the time. How did I not get that?” I hope that’s the note that we feel at the end of it all.

If anyone could pull that off, it would be the writers of Lost.

It’s going to be something where there’s one more dimension to the events we’ve witnessed than we thought or than we dreamed. Something that repositions everything. And I think these are the guys for the job. They’re deeply experienced and deeply read in science fiction and fantasy and horror and comic books. They are structurally brilliant. So if you can depend on anyone for an ending that means something, I think it will be these guys.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy. Lost airs Wednesday nights on ABC, but you probably already knew that.

You can listen to audio highlights of our interview with Michael Emerson by clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our Hobo Radio podcast:

Paul Dini has done it all. He started out writing for classic 80s cartoons like Transformers, G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe. Then, he went on to write for the groundbreaking Batman: The Animated Series. Now, he is writing for Lost, one of the hottest shows on television.

While he is certainly very busy these days writing for Lost, working on his comic Jingle Belle and adjusting to life as a newlywed, he was nice enough to take some time out to talk to us.

Let’s take it all the way back. As a child, did you read a lot of comic books and watch a lot of television? What were your interests growing up?

I did all the normal kid things. I didn’t read all that many comics. I didn’t read superhero comics at all until college because I didn’t find them all that interesting. I mainly liked comic strips and funny comics – things like Peanut collections and Pogo. We subscribed to three newspapers, so I pretty much got to see everything published in the Bay area between 1960 and 1980.

What got you interested in comics?

In college, in the early 80s, I was rooming with some people who were big comic fans and who actually managed a comic book store near Boston. Every Thursday night, one of my roommates would come home with a new comic, so I would read them and go, “Hey, these are pretty good.” He had a huge collection of various comics stretching back to the 50s. A lot of Jack Kirby comics, a lot of Will Eisner – some of the real groundbreaking and defining stuff of the comics medium. That was sort of my comics education.

You started your television career writing for animated shows. Was that something you always dreamed about doing or was it just a way for you to break into the business?

I always liked strip cartooning and I would draw my own comic strips all through college. When I began thinking about a career, it didn’t look like strip cartooning was that viable an option based on what they were buying at the time and what my interests were and how well I felt I could do it. But, I did get an offer to go to California for a while and work in an animation studio writing. I did that in the early 80s and started writing things like Fat Albert, Masters of the Universe, things like that.

You were also involved in Transformers and G.I. Joe. Seriously – those four have to be considered the grandslam of 80’s cartoons.

It was a good way to finish up my college years by having either a six month gig at an animation studio or be able to do some freelance work and pay off some college bills. I was reading the stuff and writing the stuff at the same time. And then, shortly thereafter I got an opportunity to go up to Lucasfilms in Marin County and work on the Ewoks and Droids cartoons, which was my first long steady gig.

Talk to us about that experience, and what it was like at the Skywalker Ranch working with George Lucas?

It was an amazing experience. It was like a once in a lifetime experience. I sort of looked upon it as graduate school to learn how to make films. Even though we weren’t making films, we had all the resources of Lucasfilms to draw on as far as creating the shows and George was accessible to us if we needed to ask him a question about anything. Early on, he was contributing quite a bit to the development of both those series and it was a very fun time.

My one regret about the way we did those shows was that there was no Cartoon Network at the time. There was no venue to show the cartoons and for us to really make what I thought was our best effort. I think the cartoons, Ewoks and Droids, turned out pretty well for the time and for what we were entrusted to do. But 15 years later when I saw Clone Wars, I was thinking it would have been fun to do that first Star Wars series with the same amount of freedom that Genndy Tartakovsky and his crew had because basically they had no network to answer to and no notes and constant orders to dumb it down.

The worst thing about Saturday mornings is basically the executives will tell you “dumb it down, the kids won’t understand. It can’t be too much action.” And then Clone Wars comes out and rocks the world and wins Emmys and everything. There was a big difference between 1985 and 2005 as far as what you could do and where you could show a cartoon.

So how frustrating is it dealing with network executives? Is it a constant battle?

With children’s programming, you’re dealing with people who may have failed in other elements of TV programming and wound up there because they have contracts and there is no other place for them. Very rarely do you get someone with a passion for children’s programming who really enjoys it.

The less you can deal with their creative restrictions, the better the show will be. You’ll always have the censor putting in their two cents worth, but, on the Warner Brothers stuff particularly, we did a good job censoring ourselves, so the notes were not as crippling as they might have been. But, the creative programming notes sometimes are just agony. You have people going back and forth for days over whether a character should wear berets or ribbons in her hair – which is hippest, which is freshest. The edict is to think young, hip and fresh coming from people who are none of those things.

You eventually went on to write for Batman: The Animated Series. How did that job come about and what was it like working on that program? How was working on Batman different from the other animated shows you had previously been a part of?

At the time we did Batman, which was about 14 or 15 years ago, we were coming off doing the Tiny Toons show, which had Steven Spielberg’s involvement and we also had Fox, which really wanted to do interesting programming for kids and it was kind of like a blessed time with a lot of coincidence working to our favor – that attitude was right, the network was right and the people doing the show were all right to do this as a united vision. And, for a while there, right up to the present day, we were getting away with some fun and interesting shows. I say getting away with because the norm is not that.

It’s distressing to work on a show like Batman, Batman Beyond and now on to things like Justice League where you’re really encouraged to raise the bar a bit and do shows that are engaging to children because they love superheroes, they love the basic design of them and they love the action and then you’re getting an older audience of tweens, teens and adults who may have been fans of the stuff growing up and you are hitting on all bases as far as the audience goes and you’re allowed to do that. You’re kind of on a little island there because the rest of the TV programming world is not like that. We were able to do the shows as best we can, but it’s kind of with the idea that the rest of the animation world isn’t like that and if we do another show it will probably be like a kids’ show or a Saturday morning show or an action adventure show.

You actually created Harley Quinn, who became so popular they even made her a part of Batman’s comic book universe. How did you come up with the idea for that character and how does it feel to have created such a well-received character?

Well, it feels kind of good. The way I created her was I was writing a story called “Joker’s Favor” and it was my first Joker story and I wanted to make it good and I wanted to make the Joker everything he is in the better comics books, which is funny and scary and egotistical and I thought maybe a foil would bring out some of those personality traits. The Joker traditionally has a couple of goons who work with him and we thought we’d throw in a couple of henchmen and then I started thinking about a hench-girl and what kind of girl she could be. I thought, one of the things they used to do in the old Batman series in the 60s is the villian of the week would usually have a gun moll of some type, so what if we gave the Joker a girl, but kind of did a riff on the sassy girl who followed him around and gave her a little bit more of a presence?

So, I decided to make her a funny counterpart to the Joker to maybe work up a little “Punch and Judy” attitude between them. Then, I thought, “What if the girl made jokes too, but her jokes were actually funny and the Joker looks for a reaction from his henchmen and he kind of has to scowl at them before they laugh and applaud, but the girl henchmen would naturally be funny and the guys would laugh at her more?” And the Joker would be irritated by that, but still have this strange relationship with the girl where she’d be part of the group. He wouldn’t just shoot her and throw her out.

I’m good friends with Arleen Sorkin, the actress who does Harley’s voice, and I kind of patterned the character after her a little bit because she’s very vivacious and very funny. I had seen her on Days of Our Lives at that time and in a little continuity clip, they had her character running around in a jester costume and I was thinking, “Oh, there’s kind of a sign.” So we cast her and she did the voice and I think the voice added tremendously to the appeal of the character and she just became a funny character to write, so we could write a Joker story without Harley and it would still be good and we could feature Harley in her own little stories. So she became another player in the Batman villainous universe.

The other day I was at a dime store or drug store and they had some toys off to the side and there was a DC magnet set and there was Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Supergirl, Batgirl and Harley. I thought it was kind of cool that Harley made the cut. She’s now kind of one of their more iconic characters.

Kevin Smith actually named his daughter after the character. How does that feel? Is that strange for you or is it a cool thing?

Oh, that’s very cool. That’s cute. It’s fun when I go over and visit and her mother, Jennifer, will say, “Harley Quinn, come up here right now.” I’m kind of touched that he decided to name his daughter after the character. She’s a sweet, sweet child.

Are you and Kevin Smith pretty close?

I know him pretty well. He lives a few miles away and when we throw parties, we invite each other. I’ve been on his film sets. We talk online. His wife is friends with my wife. What can I say? He’s a terrific guy, a very creative person and a good buddy.

You’ve created your own comic book called Jingle Belle. For those who aren’t familiar with it, what is the comic about and how did it come about?

I had gotten to know a lot of people in Los Angeles who were working in the film business and who were rather well known to the world at large and I was kind of wondering what their families thought of them. You might have a film director who’s known for making wonderful movies that touch hearts and souls of the world over or you may have a comedian who makes everybody laugh, but what happens when they’re at home and they are just dad? Do their kids see them the same way?

And I was looking around, not really to do a Christmas story, but a story that would kind of touch on those same feelings and I guess it just happened to be Christmas time and I was looking at a Christmas card from Steven Spielberg and his family and thought, “What if you took someone like Santa Claus, who also delights kids and use a story about his life?” Santa Claus, in popular mythology, has no children, but what if he did? My version of Santa was a bit younger than the traditional jolly old man and he had a teenage daughter and what if she was spoiled rotten? The idea that Santa gets along with every other child in the world except his own. He fell victim to perhaps overindulging his child as a lot of parents do and so she turned out kind of spoiled because, after all, who could give better presents than Santa Claus? So Jingle Belle is a teenage daughter and she’s grown up with sibling rivalry for the rest of the world. But I never wanted the book to be hateful; I wanted it to be more fun than anything.

As if your resume wasn’t impressive enough, you are now a part of one of the best show on television today, Lost. How did you get involved with the show, and what’s it like to be a part of such a tremendous success?

I was approached by Bryan Burke, who works with J.J. Abrams, about the possibility of contributing to this new show they were doing. I went in and talked to Damon Lindelof and he pitched the premise to me. He said, “This plane full of people goes down on this island and they all have to learn to get along together. It’s kind of live action Survivor – oh and there’s a monster.” Monster? Ooh, sign me up. I thought it was really great. They had liked my writing on things like Batman and I’ve kind of been all over the place in my writing, so they were looking for kind of a unique writing staff.

What sets Lost apart from most of the other shows out there today is the compelling story telling and the mystery involved with everything from the characters to the island itself. Talk to us about the process of working on this show. Did all of the writers sit down and write out the mythology of the island or was it something J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof had planned out in advance? How far into the future is the show planned out? Do you already know what is going to happen over the next few seasons or is some of that left up in the air?

Everything sort of hit the ground running and the show took a long time to sort itself out. I think that from the beginning, J.J. and Damon had definite ideas of where they were going to take the show and an overarching idea of where the show was going to begin and where it was going to end and a few key things along the way. Then we went into a long development process where we were all tossing ideas around to figure out the day to day of life on the island and who these characters were. So once we were picked up and the show started moving, Damon and J.J. had some long conversations about where the show would go and about the mystery element involved. Is every detail worked out in advance? No. But a lot of the big picture elements are worked out.

So can you tell us anything that is going to happen on the show?

Ah-hah. I’m sworn to secrecy about further Lost developments. If I let anything slip, a polar bear will be dispatched immediately to eat me.

The fans of Lost are like no other. As soon as a new episode is over, fans flock to message boards to try and figure out all of the subtle clues sprinkled in every hour of the show. People are literally watching frame-by-frame. Do you ever read any of them and, if so, do you ever shake your head at some of the crazy theories people have come up with?

I have been on some of the message boards and some of those theories aren’t so crazy. It shows that Lost is a series a lot of people feel emotionally connected to, much the same way viewers respond to a Star Trek series or a soap opera. The characters become very real to them, so it’s natural that fans would want to spend time thinking about what will happen to them. I’m sure there are a lot of great theories being generated about the Lost characters even as we speak, I just don’t have time to keep up with them all.

How often do friends and family try to get you give away secrets?

Every week. I tell them my brain is mind wiped after every story session and reinstated each subsequent meeting, but that excuse is growing thin.

In your opinion, which fans are more obsessive – Star Wars fans, comic books fans or fans of Lost?

Actually, I’ve found old record collectors beat them all. I was at a record convention in Austin, TX about seven years ago, looking for some old Bob Wills 45s for my juke box. Every time I went near a table, the dealers would snarl and show their decaying teeth as they hugged the precious sides to their soiled t-shirts. How about that? I now have Texans, record collectors and Bob Wills fans pissed off at me, too.

You’ve won five Emmy awards. Honestly, is there anything you can’t do? Talk to us about what it’s like to be recognized at such a high level.

It feels good. A lot of good writers work years without getting much attention, so I feel very fortunate to have been recognized, either by myself or as part of a talented team.

Tell us something not many people know about you.

I once did the screams for Vincent Price in an episode of Tiny Toons. He was not in good voice that day having just recovered from a bad cold, so every time he had to scream in horror, I did it for him. I told him I was trying to give it an Edward Lionheart feel from Theater of Blood mixed with just a smidge of his Dr. Phibes.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he said kindly, as if talking to an overzealous fan, which I guess he was.

We’ve got one last thing for you here – word association. We’ll just throw out a name and you tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.

Batman.

Cool.

Harley Quinn.

Fun.

The hatch.

A bunch of Japanese ninjas in suspended animation since World War II.

That was actually my dad’s original theory, but it was much better than mine, so I’m using it here.

4-8-15-16-23-42.

My measurements, but I’m not going to tell you where.

Paul Dini.

Misty’s husband.

The future.

Exciting.

Interviewed by Joel Murphy, January 2006. You can find out more about Jingle Belle by checking out the official website.Lost is on Wednesday nights on ABC.