Michael Emerson discusses Ben's latest moves!

From Kristen at E!
Death, Dear Ones and the Monster: Michael Emerson Talks Lost

In case you weren't paying attention last night, Michael Emerson, our beloved Benry, turned in an astonishing performance that was earning Emmy buzz before it even aired, and as far as I'm concerned, no one has ever done better work humanizing a supervillain.

I just rang up Michael to get his take on Lost's big game, Ben's current state of mind after the brutal death of [sobbing drowns out spoiler], and, oh yeah, his brilliant explanation of the monster's mechanics. Click in for the goods.


FAMILY AND UPPING THE ANTE


What's going on internally for Ben in that minute after Alex has been shot dead?
Well, Ben is in a state of shock. Ben doesn't usually...Ben plays a game where a variety of outcomes are to be expected, but nothing outside the table of contents. In this case, something happened. Ben took what he thought was a safe risk, and it turned out to be a terrible risk. Someone else didn't play fair, so it's about as big a shock as Ben as ever had in his life.

Jumping to the end of episode then, Charles Widmore says, I didn't kill your daughter, you did. How much does Ben feel culpable in her death?
Ben is a guy who doesn't take things lightly, and I think he has a long memory. When Charles Widmore says that it's Ben's fault—that's a kind of sophistry on his part. He's suggesting that everything Ben has ever done has led up to this moment, the idea that who we are makes us guilty across the board. But Ben's not having that explanation.

I think Ben knows that his daughter died for a very particular reason, and that Charles Widmore is the guilty one. Whatever is going on between Ben and Charles Widmore, the ante just got raised about tenfold.

In the next episode there's a scene where it looks like Sawyer might get the chance to kill Keamy, who killed Alex. Is that the kind of thing that Ben would want to do personally, or is Ben more of a big-picture thinker, just gunning for Charles?
I think Ben is in a state of bloody-mindedness right now. I think he would like to personally pull the trigger on everyone connected. And we'll see whether he has that opportunity.



Interesting. Do you expect to see Danielle and Alex again, hopefully, in one capacity or another? And what has it been like working with Tania Raymonde and Mira Furlan?
I love both these actresses, and it feels like when a dear coworker moves on to somewhere, you feel sad and lonesome...and you realize how much you've personally got invested in these fictional relationships. You know how nobody is ever fully dead on Lost, so...I don't expect that we've seen the last of them. But maybe we've seen the last of them in their fleshly state.

So Danielle doesn't pop up in the next episode with just a minor flesh wound and come after Ben or anything?
I don't—I don't think that's gonna happen...

Speaking of Danielle, I was hoping she would eventually get to kill Ben.
[Laughs.] What a strange wish on your part.


THE LADY JULIET

Well, I say this with the utmost respect and love for the character, but Ben's an unkillable cockroach, and yet you would have to imagine someone eventually gets him. Juliet, perhaps?
Well, Juliet is certainly a dangerous character. I think more dangerous than we know at this point, and certainly there are issues between Juliet and Ben that have yet to be resolved. But you know, Ben's...his whole existence may end up being redeemed by the gravity and necessity of his mission.

Speaking of Juliet, that whole "You're mine!" opened so many more questions of what does he want from her. And then...I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Mitchell is like a foot taller than you, does that ever come into play when you guys are shooting scenes together?
[Laughs.] Yes, I have to say, that was not one of Ben's prettier moments, there at the place where Goodwin met his demise.

You know, when Ben gets outside his comfort zone, like many men who are geniuses or men of sophistication, there is some part of him, to compensate, that has been undeveloped. I think Ben is maybe socially or emotionally somewhat underdeveloped.

So sometimes, when he's stressed, he behaves like a teenager. Sort of. To me. So he says things bitterly...I think he possibly regrets them later, but he does behave impulsively sometimes. For this character who is supposed to be so calculated and such a chess player, he really does behave impulsively upon occasion.

Does he want to marry Juliet so she can have a million of his babies?
I don't think he even has a clear picture what he wants. That he wants is all he knows. She is a prize in his mind. Who knows what his sex life is, or ever would be? But somehow he's decided that she is to be his.

MYTHS AND MONSTERS


Do you almost feel like after that conversation with Charles we suddenly learned that Ben is the hero of the show, even though we didn't know he existed for the first season or two?
It feels like some kind of shift along those lines is happening, doesn't it? Because each season, it's like the lens of the show steps back a notch and shows the playing field of the show to be a larger one that we had thought at first.

I think this battle between Charles Widmore and Benjamin Linus, whatever it is, whatever the stakes are, whatever the game is, I think that's now big. That's a big, important thing.

And I think, I don't know if it's just from familiarity or instinct, but I think we like Ben Linus better than we like Charles Widmore. I think Charles Widmore is a more wicked man.

Partly just because Charles is really mean to Desmond, whereas Ben has always been very courtly and gentlemanly. He'll beat you to death, but he'll say thank you when he's done or something.
Yes. [Laughs.] That's right. Manners count, don't they? Come on!


OK I have some fan questions, if you don't mind. Harry asks: "Is Ben the monster's boss? Is Ben able to just take the monster out of his cage?" What's your sense of that whole thing?
Ben is privy to the secret mechanics of everything on the Island, so yes, he can sic the smoke monster—smoke's not the right word, but he can sic that thing on someone. But we don't yet know the recipe or the formula for how that's done, and we don't know what it costs. There seem to be a lot of forces on the Island, but nothing is for free. A toll is paid every time the machinery works. Everything is bargained.

Tom asks, "Did you have any sense that between the time Ben disappeared into the tunnel, and came back sooty later, that he was essentially in a time bubble where he worked out that Sayid would help him take down Charles Widmore, or do you think that was genuinely in the future?"
I had it in my head that those things were genuinely in the future. But the passage of time is being perceived differently by different people. I thought that period of time when he went down the tunnel to enable the smoke monster and emerged sooty, I thought that was just enough time for him to take care of that, physically, by himself.

I think it all has something to do with metallic dust. I think the smoke monster is connected to that ring of powder that surrounds Jacob's cabin. They've established that there are supermagnetic forces are at work on the Island, so what better medium for those forces to work through than through fine filings of metal?

Would you like join the Lost fandom? Because you would be really good at it.
We who work on the show—we're all Losties, too! We're all theorizing and trying to put the pieces together. It must tickle the writers to see us trying to work these things out!

OK, last question. Mark from Dundee, Scotland: "Where do you think Ben stands on a scale of one to 10 where one is Hurley, totally good; five is Locke, good but willing to do bad things to achieve his ends; and 10 is Charles Widmore, evil?"
I think Ben is not bound by your scale.

God love you, sir. Want more of Michael Emerson's answers and personal brand of awesome? Check out the Lost Redux and tune in to the spoiler chat on Monday and we'll get you the hookup! Meanwhile, I want and expect you all to testify toward Michael's Emmy in the comments below. Go.

Speed Racer PREMIERE in Los Angeles...

Saturday April 26th....Los Angeles....Matthew Fox at the SPEED RACER PREMIERE!

OHHHHHH....I can't wait! Just glad to see FOXY pop back over here to the mainland for a few days! LOVE YA MATTHEW!


~NIKI

When characters die on this show...They aren't REALLY 'LOST'

In the closing moments of the last new ''Lost'' episode in March, it appeared that Rousseau (Mira Furlan) was cut down by an unseen enemy along with her daughter's boyfriend. For fans of the Frenchwoman, a character whose past has barely been explored, it was a disappointing shock. Maybe she was shot with a dart and not a bullet?

''They were shot with bullets,'' confirmed Damon Lindelof, a ''Lost'' executive producer, who refused to divulge the fates of the shooting victims.


''The good thing about 'Lost' is that being dead can lead to more work,'' said executive producer Carlton Cuse. ''It can improve your standing in the cast by getting killed. If, in fact, Rousseau proves to be dead, it doesn't have much bearing in terms of whether you'll see more of her story. We think the backstory of Rousseau and her science team is interesting and we'd love to tell that story at some point.''

After its fourth-season run was interrupted by the writers strike, ABC's mystery-filled hit returns with a run of new episodes starting at 9 tonight on WLS-Channel 7, leading up to its two-hour finale on May 29.

Talking to reporters last week, Cuse and Lindelof were coy about the show's future, refusing to comment on reports that ''Lost'' had been taping in London and that another lead character will be killed off.

''If we tease there will be a death, like when Shannon died, then everyone chases it down and spoils it,'' Cuse said. ''If we say everyone is safe, it would ruin the dramatic impact of the finale. We're excited about what's happening. There are some large and seismic events that will happen to the castaways between now and the end of the season.''

Other tidbits:

• "There are some compelling events involving Claire (Emilie de Ravin) between now and the season finale,'' Cuse said.

• The smoke monster will be featured tonight. "This episode is very dark, and very grim," executive producer J.J. Abrams told the Sun-Times earlier this week.

This year's season finale will be less smoke-and-mirrors than last year's flash-forward head trip, Lindelof said.

''Lost'' will conclude in 2010, and Lindelof said producers have already envisioned the series' closing moments.

''The last scene has been determined,'' he said. ''There would have to be some major shift in both our mindsets to back off of that.''

Source: suntimes.com

Finding FOX

Lead roles in top US dramas Lost and Party of Five have made Matthew Fox one of the most recognisable faces on international television.

He talks to Seven's film editor Cole Smithey about his latest big screen roles in the seminal thriller Vantage Point and The Wachowski brothers' Speed Racer
Practically anyone with a television is aware of Matthew Fox from the hugely successful series Lost, where he plays the plane crash survivor Jack Shepherd who shares a remote island with 47 other survivors. Commenting on the show's international success, Fox is quoted as saying that "it's sort of a show about the human species, not a show about anybody from any particular country or any nationality or any religious background".

Matthew Fox established himself as a television fixture on the series Party of Five before Lost began in 2004. Since that time, the charismatic young actor has bridged the gap between television and feature films, starring in Smokin' Aces and We Are Marshall. With performances in this year's Vantage Point and upcoming Speed Racer, Fox is making deeper forays outside of the small screen and is poised for leading feature film roles in the not so distant future.

In his latest film Vantage Point, Matthew Fox plays a secret service agent protecting a U.S. president during a trip to Spain. The director Pete Travis has turned debut screenwriter Barry Levy's Rashomon-inspired script into a dizzyingly complex puzzle that sits comfortably next to such great political thrillers as In the Line of Fire (1992). Fox's character Kent Taylor provides gripping surprises as aspects of his double life are exposed, and an intriguing plot about an assassination attempt against the president unfolds.

I met with Matthew at Sony's Madison Avenue headquarters in Manhattan, where he appeared wearing a motorcycle jacket and a look of satisfied exhaustion.

CS: What have you been up to lately?

MF: I've been to nine countries in the past 18 days. I've been to Japan, Australia, Korea, France, Spain, Russia, the UK, Germany and now New York in support of this film.

CS: Your character is probably the most multi-dimensional in the movie. You got to have your cake and eat it too.

MF: It was a fun role for me. Obviously, I disagree with his methods. For me, it's really always the project as a whole, the potential of the script and the director, and the director's take on the script. This amazing cast came together. I love Pete Travis, loved what he'd done before, and thought that the way he talked about the movie and what he wanted to do with it had all those elements. I like to believe that I'm the type of actor who will serve the story in whatever way I'm asked to serve it, once that sort of package feels like something I want to be involved in. And in this one it was Kent Taylor.

CS: I understand you did some training to play a secret service agent.

MF: Dennis [Quaid] got to do more training than I did. I was doing another film directly before, Vantage Point. I had less than a 24-hour turnaround on the films and I had to fly from Atlanta to Mexico City. It was a really intense summer for me. I was shooting six days a week to get all the work done on both films in the Lost hiatus. For me it was really just trying to gather, as quickly as possible from the consultants that we had on the film, the logistics of how these things would be choreographed, the positional reference of everyone around the President at all times, where weapons were carried, how communications were conducted - really outward mechanics types of questions. Most of the relationship between Dennis and I, and hopefully building a history, or a sensed history between these two guys was something that Dennis, Pete and I worked on quite a bit.

CS: It seemed like a physically demanding role.

MF: It was a pretty physical thing, but I enjoy that. Anytime I have an opportunity to be physical in a role that requires that…you're kind of viscerally activated. It takes away the thought process, which is fun.

CS: The car chase sequences you're in seem dangerous. How much of that was your driving?

MF: I would love to take credit for doing that car chase, but my actual driving in that was pretty limited. Most of my appearance in the car sequence was done on a green screen with a couple of guys rocking the car, with Pete sitting in front of the windshield going, "You're turning left, he's behind you!", "He's coming up on you quickly!". It was an incredibly frustrating experience. It was the only point in the entire making of the movie that I got into it with Pete. I was frustrated, and I was like, "This is not going to work". And he said, "Trust me, it's going to work". Now everybody says it's the best car chase, and they love it. So I saw Pete after not seeing him for a long time, gave him a big hug and said, "You were right, it did work out. I was doubting you, and it worked out".

CS: How did your impression of Dennis Quaid compare with the experience of working with him?

MF: I always just imagined Dennis as a really solid individual. He certainly proved to be that. I really enjoyed meeting him and enjoyed working on the project. This task was a really rewarding thing for me, to be in that company, and to just get an opportunity to be in a film with so many people that I had watched for so long and whose work I respected, and also get to know them as people a bit. It was pretty surreal. When you're in the work and you're coming at the day from the perspective of the character and you're sort of only seeing the other actors as in their characters, you're kind of defining relationships all the time, so you don't really think twice about it. But then there are those moments where you've got a couple hours of downtime and you're sitting around shooting the shit, and those were the moments where I was like, "Wow, this is pretty great that I'm in this film with this group of people".

CS: How do you feel about your upcoming Wachowski Brothers' movie Speed Racer?

MF: I'm very, very excited about the movie. I've seen certain sections of the film. It's pretty amazing, and my little boy asks me every single day when the movie's coming out. He cannot wait.

CS: Have you seen your action figure that the toy company made?

MF: Yes, I saw it. It's actually my second. There's a Jack Shepherd one for Lost as well. I'm just very excited for the experience of making it with the Wachowskis, and with the entire cast; it was amazing. It was an amazing summer.

CS: What did you enjoy about making a CGI-intensive movie?

MF: Everything about it. It was like doing it for the first time in a lot of respects. The whole process that they're doing is very different, the way that the images are layered in and the way things are shot, even. Most of the time you'd end up doing a scene and then the actors would be removed from it so you were doing it by yourself. Just the experience of discovering what this world is that they're building, and trying to find a way into that world as this masked vigilante, was really fun.

CS: Would you carry on with the franchise if it develops?

MF: I would hope to do two more. I would love to do more of that world and work with everyone involved with that project. I'm very excited by the prospect of that, but it's going to be one at a time obviously.

CS: Don't the studios typically ask you to sign on for franchise sequels when you're cast for the first one?

MF: Yes they do, and I didn't think twice about it.

CS: You've made a seemingly easy transition between television and film. How do you approach your work?

MF: I've always approached the business as a marathon, not a sprint. I think you've got to take your time and make sure you are making choices that are smart for you. Choices are very important. I've been doing it for about 17 years, and I've just always felt that I'd have more opportunities later in my life when I'd gotten some life under my belt. I've just taken my time and waited for the right opportunities.

CS: How much do you enjoy doing Lost?

MF: I really feel like Lost, and what I'm getting an opportunity to do on the show, is pretty complex and it's evolving as well. My character started as an idea of what everybody wanted him to be - this heroic guy - but he's actually really flawed and the island is stripping away this deep compassion in him and bringing out a much darker side. So there's an evolution happening in the character that's always been important to [scriptwriter] Damon Lindelof, and myself actually.

CS: The show takes liberties with past, present, and future. How long has Jack been on the island?

MF: From the time the plane crashed to Jack in the future is about a year and a half. Jack would have been on the island now for about 120 days.

CS: Would you ever consider directing a movie?

MF: Maybe. I directed an episode of Party of Five towards the very end of the show and it was a great experience, but I think if I were to ever take that on it would have to be something that I felt so personally strong about that I really felt like I was the one to tell it. Maybe that will happen. I think it'd be really exciting if it did, but it hasn't yet.

Source: www.sevenglobal.org

Foxy!!! On The Move

Matthew Fox is the middle brother of three and was raised in Wyoming, where his parents owned a horse and cattle ranch. He graduated from Columbia University and contemplated becoming a stockbroker before beginning his acting career. He is best known for his role in the TV series Lost and stars in the upcoming film Speed Racer. He is married with two children and lives in Hawaii

Matthew Fox is best known for his role as Dr Jack Shepherd in the television series Lost. Like George Clooney, that other star who began life as a doctor in a television soap and went on to become an Alister, he is progressively making the transition from the small screen to the silver screen.

The film that Fox hopes will enable him to do this is Speed Racer, a live-action version of the 1960s Japanese cartoon. The film promises to be one of the summer’s most action-packed blockbusters, featuring a car that would put James Bond’s gadget-laden Aston Martin to shame. The Mach 5, a sports car cum submarine, boasts blades that are deployed from the front bumper to scythe away obstacles, a bulletproof cabin, a remote-controlled droid and a giant jack that enables it to jump short distances at speed.

Fox plays Racer X opposite Emile Hirsch, who plays Speed, and relished the chance to get behind the wheel. “I’ve been a car nut for as long as I can remember,” he says. “One of the first things I wanted to be as a boy was a race-car driver, and I look at my own little boy, who’s only seven, and he’s already into it too, so I jumped at this film.”

The only problem is that Fox didn’t get to spend too long at the wheel of the Mach 5: most of the action uses computer-generated imagery (CGI), meaning that much of the time Fox was kitted out in his black leather costume acting on his own in front of a green screen, upon which the CGI images would later be added.

“My character is wrapped in leather and in disguise; doing fight sequences in that was incredibly difficult and I got very dehydrated. It was tough but really rewarding. A lot was CGI but I still had to do my own stunts, and that meant six weeks of hard training.”

In real life he drives an Acura TSX, a saloon based on the Honda Accord. He claims it is sporty, but you get the feeling he has bought it more for its practicality (he has a wife and two children) than seat-of-the-pants driving credentials. Not that he wants anyone to think he isn’t a petrolhead: “I enjoy racing and have always loved to drive fast, and cars in general. I recently got a chance to ride a Porsche on the Willow Springs racetrack outside Los Angeles with a professional driver from the Porsche Le Mans team. It was an absolute blast.

“I’ve done a few projects where I’ve taken Sixties vintage cars and modernised them into hot rods. Not me personally, but conceptualising it and then having someone else do all the work. Right now I’m working on a 1950 Mercury Coupe, which is going to be really cool.”

Fox says he unfortunately couldn’t take advantage of Germany’s unrestricted autobahns while filming Speed Racer there: “I really wanted to drive like a lunatic,” he says. “But when I began looking into renting something, Warner Bros didn’t really want me going out and driving 150mph on the autobahn.” Should his most recent project catapult Fox into Hollywood’s Alist, it won’t be the first time he has managed to reinvent himself. One of three sons, he grew up on a Wyoming ranch where his father, a retired geologist who had worked for Getty Oil, raised longhorn cattle and horses, and grew barley for Coors beer.

After graduating with a degree in economics from Columbia University – whose alumni include Barack Obama and Theodore and Franklin D Roosevelt – he considered a career as a stockbroker on Wall Street. Today he describes the experience as being surrounded by “go-getting wannabe Gordon Gekkos”. So he left and took modelling work at first, then roles in television commercials, before landing a part in the TV series Party of Five, which ran for six years during the 1990s.

His big break was being cast as one of the leads in Lost. The series has gained cult status, not to mention a thousand websites all trying to make sense of the contorted plot. It has been running for so long that Fox and his family have moved to Hawaii, where it is shot. It sounds idyllic, but Fox says the novelty has long since worn off.

“I’ve been living in Hawaii for almost four years now, so it’s not really paradise any more, man. Throwing snowballs on a mountain top is now paradise. It’s been a good place for us, and for a while I was excited to get out of Los Angeles, but we won’t be staying after Lost is done.

“Being in Hawaii has also been beneficial in that I really don’t like the whole paparazzi thing in my daily life, or photographs of my kids and that type of thing. It does happen but it’s very rare. I think if I was living in Los Angeles it’d be more difficult for me. There’s not a lot of paparazzi who want to do the 2,500-mile trek into the south Pacific for a shot of me walking on the beach.

“Working on Speed Racer in Germany I was barely recognised at all. The Germans really don’t give a shit, man! They might notice you, but they’re gonna pretend like they don’t, which is cool. I like that.”

But even Germany may not be isolated enough for him. His brothers and their young children live in Oregon, and he says that he and his wife, Margherita Ronchi, an Italian model who was his college sweetheart, are discussing joining them. “We’ve been talking about moving to Oregon for a while, so whenever things get tough, I just keep Oregon in my sights. I enjoy fishing, hiking and skiing, and the mountains and fresh air and all these things are available pretty easily in Oregon without having to drive a long distance.

“I’m really excited to figure all that out, but it’s still a couple of years away, so I’m just enjoying life right now.”

My stuff...

On my CD player
Radiohead’s In Rainbows and Shotter’s Nation by Babyshambles. I know that guy [Pete Doherty] has had a rough go of it, but I’ll tell you what: it’s a killer record

On my DVD player
I just watched A Clockwork Orange. I had never seen it before. I’m going back and grabbing some movies I should have seen but haven’t

In my parking space
An Acura TSX, left. It’s a nice sporty little sedan

I will never throw away
My iPod. I don’t go anywhere without it. The first thing I do every morning is put on my music

Source:www.timesonline.co.uk

DARLTON discusses LOST SCIENCE with POPULAR MECHANICS

After a five-week hiatus induced by the Hollywood writer's strike, Lost finally returns this week with a new episode, "The Shape of Things to Come." Show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who both produce and write episodes of the ABC drama, are self-professed geeks who haven't promised sci-fi entirely based in real-life science, but they still want to get it right—or at least right enough that the show's rabid fans will believe it. The duo took a break from editing Lost's three-hour season finale script to take us behind the scenes in the writer's room, talk physics and drop exclusive hints about what we can expect from the show's future. —Erin McCarthy

We fact-check the science and technology behind Lost every week and most of the time you guys get it right. How much time do you spend researching each episode, and where do you do your research? Do you have a panel of experts on speed dial?

Carlton Cuse: We do not have a panel of experts on speed dial, although we do have Greg Nations, who is our script coordinator, who is someone we will turn to who will track down specific facts. The internet is also a beautiful and wonderful thing, and we have our own areas of expertise. Damon is a real comic book geek and I'm a little bit more of a science geek. I took a couple of years of high school physics and my dad was an engineer. I think even though I maybe don't possess a deep science knowledge, I do feel like my brain kind of works a little bit in the way of, you know, does this seem like it makes sense or not, and then Damon and I will go and find an expert or some factual stuff to try to support what it is that we want to do narratively.
Damon Lindelof: We have an awesome production team in Hawaii, so if we send down a script that says "Faraday has equations scribbled all over the chalkboard behind him," that falls upon them and Jeremy Davies, the actor who plays Faraday—who is very method and has been reading a lot about physics and trying to understand it—[to execute] what it says on the script page.

How important is it for you to get the science right?

CC: The science needs to be right enough that we kind of create a sense of believability to the story telling.
DL: We function on Jurassic Park rules, which are, if you can convince me that a mosquito can bite a dinosaur and then get preserved in amber, and that the DNA will not degrade over all that period of time, then you can show me a cloned dinosaur and I won't call it a science-fiction movie. And, you know, we try to do the same thing on the show. If something highly unlikely occurs, we try to offer up some grounding in the actual physical world that we understand in an effort to explain it—except in the case of things that don't potentially have a scientific explanation, which is where the show begins to go into its own territory.
CC: But we're always trying to skirt that line between the two possible explanations, the scientific one or a mythical and magical one, and we are purposefully ambiguous about which one might be correct. Obviously, certain things fall into the science category and certain things fall more into the mystical category, and that just sort of depends on what story we're telling that week.

There's a lot of fan talk that any non-rational or fictional or magical explanation of the island's happenings is a completely unacceptable cop-out. So far, there are plausible scientific explanations for everything that's happening, so people have accepted what's going on. Does being called out by viewers (or the press) worry you?

DL: Well, first off, I would challenge that assertion, and say, how does Yemi walking out of the jungle, the deceased brother of Eko, have a scientific explanation? I guess you would argue that he doesn't walk out of the jungle, that this is all sort of happening in Eko's head, that it's a hallucination. Would that be the case, is that...


No, what I was thinking was the stuff that has been explained so far has a scientific explanation, whereas the other stuff, we're waiting, we don't really know.


DL: Right.
CC: I think the question kind of strikes right at the core of the central theme of the show, which is the notion of faith versus empiricism. Jack represents the empiricist camp, and Locke represents the faith camp, and, you know, who is right? Well, the show hasn't fully answered that question yet.
DL: Hopefully it won't feel like it's a cop out when the show does answer that question, because we never promised a show that was based entirely and grounded in science. It's nice that it's able to do that, but we reserve the right to go in the direction that the uber-plan directs us.

Desmond first time traveled in the third season, but it's not until season four that we see the scientific explanation for it. So this is a chicken-or-the-egg type question: Did you learn about the science first, then work it into the show? Or do you think of a plot element and then research different scientific theories that back it up?

DL: This is where, while Carlton has a much more practical background in science and engineering, I have a long and storied history in every single time travel story that's ever been written, and draw upon that to fundamentally provide our stories with what we want to do. In this case, we said the way that we want to do time travel on Lost is consciousness based, as opposed to somebody gets in a DeLorean or a HG Wells-like apparatus and zaps themself back in time where they can interact with an earlier version of themself. It's more interesting if your brain basically drops into your body at different points in your life, which is more consistent with the sort of Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5, paradigm, and also helps insulate you from paradox. So we decided to do that with Desmond. He felt like the logical person to do it with. We find an emotional core for the story—in his case, it's his desire to be reunited with Penny—so we tell time travel stories that sort of focus on the romantic element, which is why we think Peggy Sue in Back to the Future and Somewhere in Time all work. They're science-fiction stories, but they have an emotional core. And we go from there. And then we do the research.
CC: But the two aren't really separable, that's the thing. It's like, when we're actually talking about a story, and we're constructing elements, you know, we're always talking about the plausibility of any given beat. I think the danger that always exists on this kind of show is that the audience has to buy what you're doing. We use all sorts of different things to inspire our storytelling, but you're constantly weighing any sort of story beat against that criteria—will the audience believe it, will they buy it, particularly when we do something as out there as consciousness traveling. So we try to find a way to make it seem plausible, and yet, at the same time, clearly it's a real flight of fantasy kind of story.
DL: And the coolest thing about consciousness time travel is, you know, you're sort of a slave to your memory. So if Desmond travels back in time and he remembers that a certain team beat another team in a football game, and then something different happens, we're hinting at the idea that the future has changed, when in fact he just remembered it wrong, which is kinda cool for us.

What's the vibe like in the writer's room when you're putting together these really scientific and technical episodes? Is there a lot of back and forth, or is it ironed out ahead of time?

CC: The writer's room is a very lively place where every story point is debated and kicked around. We break the stories in their totality in the writer's room down to really the very very kind of minute details of scenes, so, you know, you're kind of harnessing the brain power of eight people in there, and that mind hive is very helpful in problem solving. And different people know more about various subjects, so, you know, one of our favorite pastimes in the room is we play this game...ah, what's the actual title...? It's Geek versus Jock.
DL: We have one writer, Brian K. Vaughn, who writes comic books, and then another writer, Adam Horowitz, who's like a die-hard sports fan.
CC: Yankees fan. He used to sell hot dogs at Yankees Stadium.
DL: We'll ask Vaughn an easy sports question, like how many innings are there in a baseball game...
CC: Or what is the color of the Carolina Panthers or what sport do the Carolina Panthers play...
DL: And then we'll ask Horowitz to name two of the Avengers. And they will face off, and it's fun to watch them, you know, try to answer questions outside of their specific area of expertise.

And what's the prize if they get it right?

DL: Bragging rights, and they avoid the scorn of the rest of the room. In fact, there's a lot of betting...once the questions are asked, all the other writers basically bet whether or not that person will get it right, so it's just, it's a face saving technique.

Is there a scientific explanation for the smoke monster?

CC: We can't answer that question without answering the question of what is the smoke monster or without giving too much away. So we have to pass on that one.
DL: We have ruled out that the smoke monster has a basis in nanotechnology, though, which is the most popular scientific explanation for the smoke monster.

When are we going to find out what the smoke monster is?

CC: Before the end of the show. That's one of the big questions, along with what is this island, and those are kinds of questions that get answered in the end run of episodes when the show is drawing to a conclusion in 2010. They're not, they're sort of foundational questions and I think those questions are the ones that we're building towards answers for.

What sort of science and techy stuff can we look forward to proving or debunking when the show comes back?

DL: We basically did an Orchid Darma orientation film for the Orchid for Comic Con last year, which is available online, I'm sure, and was set up for where we were going in our season finale. Our characters are in fact going to discover the Orchid and see a bit more of that film. There will be plenty to sort of fact check and debunk on that axis.
CC: We can say that we've been very interested in these physicists who have been building this particle accelerator in the Alps, and there's been a lot of debate and concern about what's going to happen when they start smashing these particles into each other. People who are following that will probably enjoy some of the stuff that we're doing in the upcoming run of episodes.

Obviously this piece is about the science behind Lost, but I wouldn't be a good fan if I didn't ask you to give me some scoop on what's going to the rest of the season.

CC: It just seems really appropriate that we tell Popular Mechanics that there's going to be a really juicy kiss coming up in the finale and that there's going to be a lot more on the Sawyer-Kate-Jack romantic triangle. I mean, that's the scoop that should really be in Popular Mechanics.
DL: Here's the scoop for Popular Mechanics: According to the rules of our show, a communication between sat phones is not affected by temporal distortion, but if you were to send a radio broadcast and/or a telegraph message, it would be affected by temporal distortion. That's the scoop for Popular Mechanics and Popular Mechanics only, and it will make a lot more sense after you've seen the first episode back.

Speaking of satellite phones, one of the tech things that didn't stand up was your satellite phone, and you guys got a lot of flack in the press for that. Why did you decide to go with that particular idea?

CC: I think one of the things that struck us is that [when] watch an old Julia Roberts movie and she's walking around New York holding a cell phone to her head that's the size of a toaster, we didn't really want to put ourselves in a position where we were literally married to everything that exists technologically. We decided that our satellite phone would be a very modern, high-tech version of it, and created one that we thought was cool.
DL: We have technical experts down in Hawaii on the production end, and I think that the thinking at the time was, that although these sat phones were built in 2004, that the people who had them had access to the latest technology. So it's sort of like when you travel to Japan, their cell phones are two years ahead of our cell phones. You can walk up to a vending machine with your cell phone and scan a barcode and it'll spit a bag of chips and a coke out at you. The technology existed to build a phone like that in 2004, they just weren't readily available in any American market.

How do you keep track of all the complicated plot angles? You've got characters in flashbacks and flashforwards and everyone's interconnected in some way...how do you even begin to keep track of that?

CC: I don't think that Damon or me would win a Lost trivia contest, but we obviously know the general details of everything and we keep that in our brains. But Greg Nations keeps the sort of elaborate series of bibles and timelines and charts the number of days of stories and, you know, he's sort of the keeper of the wisdom of Lost. So whenever there's a question about continuity or where an event takes place in relation to another event, Greg can plot it in the overall kind of schema of the show. So he is an invaluable resource and he is the guy who makes sure that everything makes sense or at least makes as much sense as we can make it make sense.
DL: You know, the chronology of the show has become very intricate, especially since we just started doing flash forwards. Before it was which happened first: Sawyer met Jack's dad in a bar in Australia, or, Walt and Michael get on Oceanic 815? Now that we're in the future, and we're telling future stories out of order, so last year's finale you got bearded, pill-popping Jack screaming at Kate "We've gotta go back!" And this year you're seeing Jack in other people's flash forwards obviously before that series of events took place, so...he's testifying at Kate's trial, or he's visiting Hurley at the mental institution and we need to sort of plot out when in time are those events happening in relation to each other. It's not an easy job.

One of the things that the fans really love is assigning meaning to things that they see in the show, and sometimes they assign meaning to things that have no meaning. So do you ever place a scientific name or an Easter Egg that's a joke or meant to confuse people?

CC: I think it's more a question of how much meaning do things have. I mean, sometimes names, like Minkowsky, that's meaningful. Sometimes we name characters and they're named after somebody's friend but it also turns out that they're a famous person. So, you know, without kind of detailing which are which, we have a spectrum of meanings that we assign to things, and it's just sort of circumstantial or narratively we get to a place where somebody has to be named something that's really important for the story, but it really does vary...
DL: If you look at the freighter folk, Charlotte Staples Lewis is named after C.S. Lewis. Miles Strom is named after a pun because his name sounds like maelstrom, you know, when you pronounce it very quickly, and...
CC: Oh, Faraday is obviously a famous scientist...
DL: Yeah, and Frank Lapidus is a name that Eddie Kitsis, Adam Horowitz's writing partner, actually, and one of our other writer/producers, has just been saying for years, "There's gotta be a character on the show named Frank Lapidus."
CC: And he has a buddy whose name is Lapidus.
DL: So if there's anyone out there going, oh, you know...
CC: Working on the Lapidus anagram...
DL: That would be somebody finding something we did not intend.

Does it amaze you the lengths that people go to to research the show?

CC: It does, in fact. And it's kind of flattering and it kind of boggles our minds, actually. We actually really just set out to make a show that we thought was kind of cool and entertaining, and we never imagined that people would get wrapped up in the intricacies of it to the degree that they have. I think Lost was really a pioneer in the use of the kind of connection between a television show and the internet, and the internet really gave fans an opportunity to create a community around the show. That was something that wasn't really planned, it just sort of grew up in the wake of the show.

FRIENDSHIP is the KEY..DARLTON SPEAKS!

From CTV.ca


Producers and long-time best friends Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse say their relationship is the key to their success on "Lost."


"We can count on one hand the number of times we disagreed about anything," Lindelof tells CTV.ca.


Cuse and Lindelof have been scrambling to finish writing and shooting the final six episodes of the show's fourth season, with two crews shooting round-the-clock to wrap the show up in time.


"The show is a hugely demanding beast, particularly coming back after the strike," says Cuse.


"Fortunately we are very good friends and we get along great and I think we have a collaboration in which the total is greater than the sum of the parts."


"Lost" returns from a four-week break on Thursday April 24, with a new episode at 10 p.m.


The show picks up right where it left off, with the survivors trying to figure out who the mysterious freighter crew are and how some of them are going to get off the island.


Lindelof and Cuse are well known to "Lost" fans, from cracking jokes on-camera during "Lost" recap specials, their weekly irreverent podcast and countless interviews where the duo tries their best to avoid giving anything away.


"We spend the majority of our time in each other's company, but over the course of the day, we will divide and conquer on occasions when the fire is burning bright," says Lindelof.


"It requires tremendous shorthand to do the job that we do."


The pair first met when Cuse was working on his series "Nash Bridges" and had hired Lindelof as a writer. The pair quickly became close friends.


Following "Nash Bridges," Lindelof went on to find success with "Crossing Jordan" and later struck a deal for "Lost" alongside J.J. Abrams.


Abrams is originally responsible for coming up with the idea of "Lost," and alongside Lindelof, developed the characters and the plot.


When "Lost" was picked up for development, Cuse was brought on board to co-run the show alongside Lindelof, and the rest is "Lost" history. The show has gone on to earn multiple Emmy, Golden Globe, Producers Guild and Writers Guild awards.


"I think that it's very special for me to work with Damon and I feel like the joy and the collaboration is a big part of what makes doing the show fun," says Cuse.