Matt Fox - Keeping Secrets

STARRING in Lost, possibly the most surreal television mystery since Twin Peaks, has made Matthew Fox a much better actor. Off screen, that is.
Matthew Fox knows how to keep a good secret.

He says he is forever pleading ignorant when fans -- and sometimes fellow cast members -- try to extract juicy details about the show's many secrets from him.

And often, Fox says, he's not giving those people the whole story.

The Channel 7 series about survivors of a plane crash marooned on a mysterious island has won legions of fans around the world and triggered countless theories about where the castaways actually are -- purgatory, a computer game and a scientific experiment being some of the more outlandish suggestions.

As a friend of the show's creators, JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof, Fox has occasionally been privy to plotlines ahead of time, but is sworn to secrecy.

He was told about last year's shocking finale, featuring a flash forward to the future, before most of the cast and says keeping the secret was difficult.

‘‘One day Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) and I were in a van going out to location and she was asking all these questions,'' he says.

‘‘She sensed something was up.

‘‘I wanted to tell her so bad. But I couldn't.''

Unlike Twin Peaks, which lost many viewers when they became frustrated by the many unresolved mysteries and increasingly bizarre storylines, Lost's writers have been quick to reassure viewers of impending answers by announcing the show will end in 2010.

Fox says he was the first cast member to be given the entire pilot script to read and was instantly intrigued by the story of the tropical island populated by polar bears, a monster made of smoke and a community of people known as The Others.

But when he auditioned he had to read the part of con artist Sawyer (now played by Josh Holloway) because Lost's creators did not want to reveal the whole story to anyone.

However, Abrams and Lidelof relented and gave the former Party of Five star the full script to read.

‘‘They kept asking what I thought,'' he says with a laugh.

‘‘I just said, ‘I think it's really, really good. Now would you just let me finish it?' ''

Though the flash forward reveals Fox's character, Jack Shephard, along with Kate, played by Evangeline Lilly, escape the island, that does not mean his character is safe from death forever.

‘‘We only know that he will not die in season four,'' Fox says cryptically. ‘‘But who knows what might happen after that.

‘‘It's not as though only red shirts (the anonymous cast of characters in Star Trek) get killed each week, it's the core cast.

‘‘I have always maintained that I could die at any time.''

In the past three seasons, at least six of the main cast have been killed off, including Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) in last season's finale.

Fox says though he has learned about some plot twists before other cast members, he says actors whose characters were to die were always told their fate before anyone else.

He actually prefers to be in the dark about what's going to happen.

Fox says it's the mystery of the show that keeps viewers watching -- and asking questions. And his tattoos have ended up being one of the biggest sources of intrigue since being written into the show last year.

One tattoo featuring Asian characters has been revealed as a preordained sign of impending doom made by a psychic tattooist played by Bai Ling.

The meaning of the others, as with most things to do with Lost, still remains unknown.

Though fans regularly ask him about Jack's tattoos, Fox cannot say anything. Nor would he want to.

He would never share such a personal part of himself with the world, whether it was pertinent to the Lost plotline or not.

For the most part, Fox shuns the spotlight. He prefers to spend time with his family at their home in Hawaii, where Lost is filmed.

He doesn't even hang out with the cast after hours, saying the attention surrounding the entertainment industry is strange and unnerving.

Fox says his children have started to notice the attention he gets from strangers and their own friends.

‘‘It makes me miserable,'' he says. ‘‘I'm not terribly comfortable with the hoopla around actors or musicians for that matter.

‘‘It's weird when my children's friends or their friends' parents make a big deal of it (his fame).

‘‘I would prefer to see scientists celebrated. There's a lot that needs to be done to save this planet of ours.''

Source:

Hearald Sun