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In a story almost as twisted and confusing as an episode of "Lost," actor Naveen Andrews, who plays Sayiid on the show, has been granted custody of his son--under circumstances that involve talk of poison and witchcraft. This actually sounds better than an episode of "Lost"...witchcraft always trumps polar bears.
Andrews was granted custody after the mother of his child broke the arrangements of their custody agreement by taking their son Naveen Joshua out of Los Angeles County, and by preventing Andrews from seeing his son. A courtroom battle went down, during which Elana Eustache, the mother of the child, made all sorts of allegations, including that Andrews had tried to poison their son and that Andrews's longtime girlfriend Barbara Hershey should be kept away from the little boy because she practiced witchcraft.
What the eff?
Not surprisingly, it was requested during the hearing that Eustache undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
Naveen Joshua had been brought to court with his mother, but left with his obviously saner father. Andrews was granted permission to bring the boy to Hawaii where the new season of "Lost" is currently in production. Neither Andrews nor Hershey seem to have struck the court as particularly poisonous, or witchlike, as both were granted permission to care for the boy.
Andrews and Hershey split briefly in 2005 and Andrews later admitted to fathering a child with Eustache during that time. After reuniting with Hershey and learning about his son, Andrews released a statement saying that he had "every intention of assuming appropriate responsibility" for the child and "acting "with all integrity." Which may or may not involve boiling rabbits in black cauldrons while his girlfriend wears a pointy hat and rides a broom. Only time will tell.
We wish little Naveen lots of days of happiness in the Hawaiian sun. Also, if he's able to pick up any secrets that solve some of the greater "Lost" mysteries under the guise of just hanging out on the beach and building sandcastles with Evangeline Lilly, we would appreciate him leaking them to us promptly.
Source: actressarchives.com
Showing posts with label Sayid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sayid. Show all posts
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Interview with Naveen Andrews!
As you may know, Naveen has been fairly elusive with the press in recent years; however, the man we know and love (and drool over) as Lost's Sayid Jarrah graciously took some time at the Monte Carlo TV Fest to chat about that itty-bitty island on which he’s been kicking ass for four seasons strong.
Keep reading to get the goods!
What do you think of the fact that the show has an end date?
Relief, really. I think it was the only way to keep the quality up—the quality we had from the first season—and hopefully that's been borne out by the fourth season.
What theory do you have about how the show will end?
I just hope that whatever it is, all these things that they've thrown out—all these nuggets from the polar bear to infinity—that they put it together into some cohesive whole that makes sense and is satisfying for the audience.
Where do you go in two years when the series ends?
Wherever the good work is, whether it's film or TV. Wherever the good writing is.
Sayid showed off some pretty insane fight moves in the season finale, while battling Keamy. Has he always had those skills or has he been practicing?
I presume he was always able to, coming from the military and being in the Republican Guard, which I believe was an elite force.
How have you prepared for a character who seems quiet and peaceful on the surface but has a deep, dark side as a former torturer?
There's obviously a certain amount of academic research you can do with history—somebody from the military and their faith, the country they're from. But with TV, especially with a show of this nature, you have to be open and prepared for anything they might throw at you. It could mean a complete 180 in terms of what drives your character, and if you've prepared to the extent where it becomes rigid, it's not going to be useful, is it?
Which character would you like to have been if you weren't Sayid?
I always thought it would be Locke. I always liked that character, but I'm too...maybe I need to shave my head and just age a bit more.
Steve Jones, the former Sex Pistol, guided you to your first AA meeting. How did you get to know him?
I met him at a dinner party in L.A., and I was shocked to meet somebody who had been in that band who was not completely drugged out. I found that really intriguing, and it made me think, "If he's done it, then maybe I've got a chance."
Source: eonline.com
Keep reading to get the goods!
What do you think of the fact that the show has an end date?
Relief, really. I think it was the only way to keep the quality up—the quality we had from the first season—and hopefully that's been borne out by the fourth season.
What theory do you have about how the show will end?
I just hope that whatever it is, all these things that they've thrown out—all these nuggets from the polar bear to infinity—that they put it together into some cohesive whole that makes sense and is satisfying for the audience.
Where do you go in two years when the series ends?
Wherever the good work is, whether it's film or TV. Wherever the good writing is.
Sayid showed off some pretty insane fight moves in the season finale, while battling Keamy. Has he always had those skills or has he been practicing?
I presume he was always able to, coming from the military and being in the Republican Guard, which I believe was an elite force.
How have you prepared for a character who seems quiet and peaceful on the surface but has a deep, dark side as a former torturer?
There's obviously a certain amount of academic research you can do with history—somebody from the military and their faith, the country they're from. But with TV, especially with a show of this nature, you have to be open and prepared for anything they might throw at you. It could mean a complete 180 in terms of what drives your character, and if you've prepared to the extent where it becomes rigid, it's not going to be useful, is it?
Which character would you like to have been if you weren't Sayid?
I always thought it would be Locke. I always liked that character, but I'm too...maybe I need to shave my head and just age a bit more.
Steve Jones, the former Sex Pistol, guided you to your first AA meeting. How did you get to know him?
I met him at a dinner party in L.A., and I was shocked to meet somebody who had been in that band who was not completely drugged out. I found that really intriguing, and it made me think, "If he's done it, then maybe I've got a chance."
Source: eonline.com
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The Lost Report
Interview with many cast members and rumours of what is to come on the island. Possibility of mild spoilers!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
There are few entertainment columns I read as religiously as Jeff Jensen's "Lost" column on Entertainment Weekly's website. This weeks column has some killer info and poses some very interesting questions. Here it is:
Life on the Oahu set of "Lost" isn't always a day at the beach. On this sweltering March afternoon, for example, ABC's cult hit about castaways on a time-warped tropical isle has chosen to shoot in...a rock quarry. Amount of fun currently being had: Zero.
The horses are jumpy from machine-gun fire. Executive producer Jack Bender is directing with an ice pack to his face after walking into a crane. And Michael Emerson -- a.k.a. Benjamin Linus, the show's villainous über-Other -- is broiled, thanks to his curious wardrobe requirement: a woolly winter parka.
''Definitely a no-glamour zone,'' says Emerson during a brief respite from shooting Lost's first episode since the writers' strike interrupted production last November. ''I thought we would ease into things. Instead, I get this all-Ben extravaganza: combat, riding horses, foreign languages. And piano playing! All waaaay outside my comfort zone. How can you work two weeks and feel like you need a vacation already?''
Some sympathy for Lost's biggest devil? Not a polar bear's chance in Tunisia. Besides, there's crucial work to be done. You'll start seeing it on April 24, when Lost returns with the first of five fresh episodes that will wrap up its buzzy, strike-abbreviated fourth season. EW spent three days on the set of the drama, and judging from the looks of things -- like the corpse that washes up on the sandy shores of Camp Jack and the raging gunfight that will decimate Camp Locke -- the first episode back, ominously titled ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' will launch the endgame with downright apocalyptic thunder. The ensuing four installments will answer some of the season's biggest questions: How did the much-vaunted Oceanic 6 leave the Island? What happened to those left behind? Why is Sayid (Naveen Andrews) killing people for Ben in the future? And who's rotting inside that darn coffin? ''It's big and epic,'' promises Matthew Fox (Jack). ''Our first eight episodes, by design, were all set up for these episodes to come. That we're doing just five instead of eight means they're even more packed with plot. It's payoff time.'' More momentously, the finale -- whose Big Twist is code-named ''Frozen Donkey Wheel'' -- will set the stage for another series reinvention. Citing the seventh Harry Potter book, in which J.K. Rowling broke her usual year-at-Hogwarts template, executive producer Damon Lindelof says, ''We're taking the same approach. You think the show is, 'Okay, they're on the Island, and then -- whoosh -- you're in the past or the future.' By the end of season 4, I think the audience is going to go, 'How can the show continue to be that?' And they are absolutely right.''
Camp Locke is actually Camp Erdman in real life, a YMCA facility on Oahu's North Shore. On this rain-splashed afternoon, a couple dozen day campers sit on the grass, waiting to watch Lost blow up one of their cabins. As the explosives get rigged, the man who plays con-artist bad boy Sawyer, Josh Holloway, gamely takes questions. One boy shares how his mother, a big Lost fan, talks about the show so incessantly that he has to cover his ears and beg her to stop. The kids laugh, and so does Holloway, but the camp counselor is embarrassed. ''Now, remember,'' she scolds. ''Respectful questions.''
The stars of Lost have heard worse, especially last year when they were put in the awkward position of answering harsh criticism about how Lost had lost its way. ''When you came out here last season, I remember I didn't talk to you,'' Andrews tells an EW writer, ''because if all you have to say is something negative, why talk at all?'' Asked where he thought season 3 went wrong, Andrews smiles. ''Well, I wasn't in it much, so that's flaw number one, without sounding ridiculously arrogant,'' laughs the actor, whose Sayid was truly underutilized. ''A lot of us didn't know which way the show was going, and I'm not sure the writers did, either. They seemed to be meandering in the dark. But it's good now. We're on track.''
So how did they find the light? By negotiating the death of Lost itself. Last May, the show's guiding hands, Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, reached a deal with ABC to end the series in 2010 after three 16-episode seasons; as a result, Lost's storytellers have been able to bring structure and focus to their saga. It began with last year's bravura finale, which brought the promise of rescue and introduced ''flash-forward'' storytelling into the mix. Fox -- who was the only actor besides Evangeline Lilly (Kate) privy to the episode's it's-not-a-flashback twist -- recalls barely being able to keep the secret from the rest of the cast. ''I knew it would take Lost to the next level,'' he says.
Season 4 has gone even further with new twists, new characters, and a new forward-moving, future-revealing mythology. Front and center are the Oceanic 6, a privileged clutch of castaways -- Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sun (Yunjin Kim), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), and baby Aaron -- who have somehow, someway escaped the Island. ''I think this flash-forward business is a stroke of genius,'' says Emerson. ''I think everybody here feels that we are now a more mature show, that we are now a show for grown-ups, because we're going to see that like in life, there may not be happy endings for many of us on this Island.''
At the very least, Lost has become a show no longer dogged by skepticism that its producers lack a master plan. ''The question of 'Do you guys know where you're going?' kind of evaporated,'' says Cuse. ''People are no longer fearful that they're going to be led like lemmings to a cliff edge and plunge off.'' Nobody is more thrilled than the cast; across the board, their enthusiasm -- and, in some cases, relief -- is palpable. ''Now, the story carries everything and we're just players in it, which I like,'' says Holloway. ''The writers can be concise. I like that, too.'' Adds Fox: ''Our writers have always said we needed an end in order to start ripping. Now, we're ripping.''
This isn't to say that season 4 has been perfect. After hitting a high-water mark with ''The Constant,'' a deftly plotted, unabashedly romantic time-travel yarn that ended with Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) finally making contact with soul mate Penelope Widmore (Sonya Walger), Lost slowed the pace and muffed some plays. A trick ending -- She's in the future! He's in the past! -- to an otherwise powerful episode featuring Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun alienated some perplexed fans. And the hyped-up return of castaway traitor Michael (Harold Perrineau) defied continuity logic and generally failed to meet expectations. Still, these are minor concerns compared with past infractions such as a guest turn by Bai Ling and last year's awkward introductions of -- we hesitate to even bring up their names -- Nikki and Paulo.
Ironically, season 4's overall strength and sophistication may have renewed Lost's creative mojo, but it has also sealed the show's rep as an intimidating weekly TV commitment. Viewership has steadily declined throughout the season, from 17.8 million for the season 4 premiere to 13.4 for episode 8. When the show returns April 24, it will air after Grey's Anatomy, at 10 p.m., and while it may get some draft from the hospital hit, it's a less-than-McDreamy hour for a series that demands maximum alertness. But ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson says that even though he'd ''love to see the show grow...the reality is that the numbers are pretty good.'' And he's as excited as anyone about the new direction. ''Lost has established itself as one of the great shows of all time. I'm proud that by agreeing to end the show, we have freed them up to do what they want to do.''
And what they'll be doing is kicking things off with a meaty sweep of story. In addition to being a flash-forward adventure for globe-trotting Ben, in which his war with British billionaire Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) over control of the Island will intensify, episode 9 revisits a long-simmering subplot: Sayid's romance with Iraqi love Nadia (Andrea Gabriel). According to Lindelof, a new dimension of Smokey the monster's mercurial nature will also be revealed, per the Lost rule that ''you learn something new about the monster whenever it appears.'' And Cuse says a major story line will begin for Claire (Emilie de Ravin), Aaron's Aussie mommy, who lost boyfriend Charlie in last year's finale: ''Mysterious things are happening to Claire that set up the next few episodes -- and the next few years, too.''
''The Shape of Things to Come'' will be followed by a flash-forward installment for Jack. ''We're starting to close the loop on the end of last season,'' says Fox. ''Jack in the future is a man marked by weakness, but the Jack of the present is strong. You're going to understand how he made that transition.'' The last three episodes include only one flashback, which the producers say will be a mythically significant outing for...someone. The rumor: Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Fans will also see a new Dharma station called the Orchid -- all three levels of it -- that might shed more light on the Island's time-warping properties. Peripheral faves like Penelope, ageless Other Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), and off-Island mystery man Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) will pop up. But due to the strike, two breakout freighter newbies -- frazzled physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and ghost-whispering hustler Miles Straume (Ken Leung) -- won't be getting their spotlights until next year. The May 22 finale will complicate the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle by featuring ''a spectacular kiss'' and elaborate on Jack's flash-forward ambition to journey back to the Island. ''This year's finale will sum up exactly how difficult it may be to accomplish that,'' says Lindelof, who adds this cryptic response to speculation that flash-forwards will vanish once Island present meets off-Island future: ''There could easily be a time when the word flash becomes irrelevant.''
While fans wait to see what form Lost's future takes, the cast waits to see whether they'll be part of it: Peril abounds for the castaways in the next five episodes. During EW's stay on the set, Garcia prepared for an encounter with Smokey, and Holloway was spritzed with fake sweat and a touch of blood in advance of a raging gunfight. After fishing that mystery corpse from the surf, Daniel Dae Kim addressed a reporter's question about Jin's uncertain flash-forward fate (he seemingly died in the March 13 episode) with a mock-frantic cry: ''I don't know!'' As it was at the start, Lost is once more the show where anything can happen. Drying out in the sun after scurrying away from a big wave that washed out the scene, Yunjin Kim sits in the tall grass of the beach and sums it up: ''It feels like season 1. And I love it.''
Source: www.ew.com
There are few entertainment columns I read as religiously as Jeff Jensen's "Lost" column on Entertainment Weekly's website. This weeks column has some killer info and poses some very interesting questions. Here it is:
Life on the Oahu set of "Lost" isn't always a day at the beach. On this sweltering March afternoon, for example, ABC's cult hit about castaways on a time-warped tropical isle has chosen to shoot in...a rock quarry. Amount of fun currently being had: Zero.
The horses are jumpy from machine-gun fire. Executive producer Jack Bender is directing with an ice pack to his face after walking into a crane. And Michael Emerson -- a.k.a. Benjamin Linus, the show's villainous über-Other -- is broiled, thanks to his curious wardrobe requirement: a woolly winter parka.
''Definitely a no-glamour zone,'' says Emerson during a brief respite from shooting Lost's first episode since the writers' strike interrupted production last November. ''I thought we would ease into things. Instead, I get this all-Ben extravaganza: combat, riding horses, foreign languages. And piano playing! All waaaay outside my comfort zone. How can you work two weeks and feel like you need a vacation already?''
Some sympathy for Lost's biggest devil? Not a polar bear's chance in Tunisia. Besides, there's crucial work to be done. You'll start seeing it on April 24, when Lost returns with the first of five fresh episodes that will wrap up its buzzy, strike-abbreviated fourth season. EW spent three days on the set of the drama, and judging from the looks of things -- like the corpse that washes up on the sandy shores of Camp Jack and the raging gunfight that will decimate Camp Locke -- the first episode back, ominously titled ''The Shape of Things to Come,'' will launch the endgame with downright apocalyptic thunder. The ensuing four installments will answer some of the season's biggest questions: How did the much-vaunted Oceanic 6 leave the Island? What happened to those left behind? Why is Sayid (Naveen Andrews) killing people for Ben in the future? And who's rotting inside that darn coffin? ''It's big and epic,'' promises Matthew Fox (Jack). ''Our first eight episodes, by design, were all set up for these episodes to come. That we're doing just five instead of eight means they're even more packed with plot. It's payoff time.'' More momentously, the finale -- whose Big Twist is code-named ''Frozen Donkey Wheel'' -- will set the stage for another series reinvention. Citing the seventh Harry Potter book, in which J.K. Rowling broke her usual year-at-Hogwarts template, executive producer Damon Lindelof says, ''We're taking the same approach. You think the show is, 'Okay, they're on the Island, and then -- whoosh -- you're in the past or the future.' By the end of season 4, I think the audience is going to go, 'How can the show continue to be that?' And they are absolutely right.''
Camp Locke is actually Camp Erdman in real life, a YMCA facility on Oahu's North Shore. On this rain-splashed afternoon, a couple dozen day campers sit on the grass, waiting to watch Lost blow up one of their cabins. As the explosives get rigged, the man who plays con-artist bad boy Sawyer, Josh Holloway, gamely takes questions. One boy shares how his mother, a big Lost fan, talks about the show so incessantly that he has to cover his ears and beg her to stop. The kids laugh, and so does Holloway, but the camp counselor is embarrassed. ''Now, remember,'' she scolds. ''Respectful questions.''
The stars of Lost have heard worse, especially last year when they were put in the awkward position of answering harsh criticism about how Lost had lost its way. ''When you came out here last season, I remember I didn't talk to you,'' Andrews tells an EW writer, ''because if all you have to say is something negative, why talk at all?'' Asked where he thought season 3 went wrong, Andrews smiles. ''Well, I wasn't in it much, so that's flaw number one, without sounding ridiculously arrogant,'' laughs the actor, whose Sayid was truly underutilized. ''A lot of us didn't know which way the show was going, and I'm not sure the writers did, either. They seemed to be meandering in the dark. But it's good now. We're on track.''
So how did they find the light? By negotiating the death of Lost itself. Last May, the show's guiding hands, Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, reached a deal with ABC to end the series in 2010 after three 16-episode seasons; as a result, Lost's storytellers have been able to bring structure and focus to their saga. It began with last year's bravura finale, which brought the promise of rescue and introduced ''flash-forward'' storytelling into the mix. Fox -- who was the only actor besides Evangeline Lilly (Kate) privy to the episode's it's-not-a-flashback twist -- recalls barely being able to keep the secret from the rest of the cast. ''I knew it would take Lost to the next level,'' he says.
Season 4 has gone even further with new twists, new characters, and a new forward-moving, future-revealing mythology. Front and center are the Oceanic 6, a privileged clutch of castaways -- Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sun (Yunjin Kim), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), and baby Aaron -- who have somehow, someway escaped the Island. ''I think this flash-forward business is a stroke of genius,'' says Emerson. ''I think everybody here feels that we are now a more mature show, that we are now a show for grown-ups, because we're going to see that like in life, there may not be happy endings for many of us on this Island.''
At the very least, Lost has become a show no longer dogged by skepticism that its producers lack a master plan. ''The question of 'Do you guys know where you're going?' kind of evaporated,'' says Cuse. ''People are no longer fearful that they're going to be led like lemmings to a cliff edge and plunge off.'' Nobody is more thrilled than the cast; across the board, their enthusiasm -- and, in some cases, relief -- is palpable. ''Now, the story carries everything and we're just players in it, which I like,'' says Holloway. ''The writers can be concise. I like that, too.'' Adds Fox: ''Our writers have always said we needed an end in order to start ripping. Now, we're ripping.''
This isn't to say that season 4 has been perfect. After hitting a high-water mark with ''The Constant,'' a deftly plotted, unabashedly romantic time-travel yarn that ended with Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) finally making contact with soul mate Penelope Widmore (Sonya Walger), Lost slowed the pace and muffed some plays. A trick ending -- She's in the future! He's in the past! -- to an otherwise powerful episode featuring Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Sun alienated some perplexed fans. And the hyped-up return of castaway traitor Michael (Harold Perrineau) defied continuity logic and generally failed to meet expectations. Still, these are minor concerns compared with past infractions such as a guest turn by Bai Ling and last year's awkward introductions of -- we hesitate to even bring up their names -- Nikki and Paulo.
Ironically, season 4's overall strength and sophistication may have renewed Lost's creative mojo, but it has also sealed the show's rep as an intimidating weekly TV commitment. Viewership has steadily declined throughout the season, from 17.8 million for the season 4 premiere to 13.4 for episode 8. When the show returns April 24, it will air after Grey's Anatomy, at 10 p.m., and while it may get some draft from the hospital hit, it's a less-than-McDreamy hour for a series that demands maximum alertness. But ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson says that even though he'd ''love to see the show grow...the reality is that the numbers are pretty good.'' And he's as excited as anyone about the new direction. ''Lost has established itself as one of the great shows of all time. I'm proud that by agreeing to end the show, we have freed them up to do what they want to do.''
And what they'll be doing is kicking things off with a meaty sweep of story. In addition to being a flash-forward adventure for globe-trotting Ben, in which his war with British billionaire Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) over control of the Island will intensify, episode 9 revisits a long-simmering subplot: Sayid's romance with Iraqi love Nadia (Andrea Gabriel). According to Lindelof, a new dimension of Smokey the monster's mercurial nature will also be revealed, per the Lost rule that ''you learn something new about the monster whenever it appears.'' And Cuse says a major story line will begin for Claire (Emilie de Ravin), Aaron's Aussie mommy, who lost boyfriend Charlie in last year's finale: ''Mysterious things are happening to Claire that set up the next few episodes -- and the next few years, too.''
''The Shape of Things to Come'' will be followed by a flash-forward installment for Jack. ''We're starting to close the loop on the end of last season,'' says Fox. ''Jack in the future is a man marked by weakness, but the Jack of the present is strong. You're going to understand how he made that transition.'' The last three episodes include only one flashback, which the producers say will be a mythically significant outing for...someone. The rumor: Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Fans will also see a new Dharma station called the Orchid -- all three levels of it -- that might shed more light on the Island's time-warping properties. Peripheral faves like Penelope, ageless Other Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), and off-Island mystery man Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) will pop up. But due to the strike, two breakout freighter newbies -- frazzled physicist Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and ghost-whispering hustler Miles Straume (Ken Leung) -- won't be getting their spotlights until next year. The May 22 finale will complicate the Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle by featuring ''a spectacular kiss'' and elaborate on Jack's flash-forward ambition to journey back to the Island. ''This year's finale will sum up exactly how difficult it may be to accomplish that,'' says Lindelof, who adds this cryptic response to speculation that flash-forwards will vanish once Island present meets off-Island future: ''There could easily be a time when the word flash becomes irrelevant.''
While fans wait to see what form Lost's future takes, the cast waits to see whether they'll be part of it: Peril abounds for the castaways in the next five episodes. During EW's stay on the set, Garcia prepared for an encounter with Smokey, and Holloway was spritzed with fake sweat and a touch of blood in advance of a raging gunfight. After fishing that mystery corpse from the surf, Daniel Dae Kim addressed a reporter's question about Jin's uncertain flash-forward fate (he seemingly died in the March 13 episode) with a mock-frantic cry: ''I don't know!'' As it was at the start, Lost is once more the show where anything can happen. Drying out in the sun after scurrying away from a big wave that washed out the scene, Yunjin Kim sits in the tall grass of the beach and sums it up: ''It feels like season 1. And I love it.''
Source: www.ew.com
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