Viewers aren’t the only ones mystified by what they see on ABC’s Lost. Most of the time, Michael Emerson says, the actors are just as much in the dark.
"We sit and talk about it amongst ourselves the way people do at home," says Emerson, who stars as Machiavellian islander Ben Linus. "In a way, it’s more clear on the screen than it sometimes is on the printed page, like in those episodes where the white flashes kept coming and people kept waking up in a different time."
Those scenes "played better" onscreen, the Emmy-nominated actor admits, than they did in his imagination. "The actors struggle with it, too," he says. "We’re just as caught up in the mysteries and how to puzzle it all out."
There’s no point in pumping Emerson for answers to the time-tripping castaway drama. "We’ve been trained into being careful about the few secrets we have," he says.
Emerson will tease, however, that new revelations about Ben and how he went bad are coming. The first in a new batch of episodes airs at 8 p.m. March 18.
1 Is it true that you thought this gig would last only a few episodes?
Yeah. And I’m glad I got it the way I got it. If someone had called me and said, "Listen, you’re about to become a regular on an iconic television program," I might have been nervous and possibly messed it up. In a way, I was a regular before I realized it. I was probably the last to tumble to it, although I should have known: They kept not letting me go home."
2 When did you first know that Ben was the ultimate schemer?
I remember about three or four episodes into my work when Sayid was torturing me and trying to get me to give the name of my master and I was whimpering and pleading and saying I couldn’t tell. The director came to me after a take and said, "Let’s go again and, this time, your master is the scariest man in the world." I said, "All right, I’ll do that. But what if I’m the head guy?" And the director blinked and said, "I can’t discuss that with you." And I thought, "Ah, I see what’s going on."
3 What can you share about the four-episode story line that will feature Ben as a young boy?
It’s safe to say we are going to revisit Ben’s youth. With some surprising developments and some recontextualizing of events we’ve already witnessed, which is one of the things our writers have license to do. Not only can we travel in time, but we can go back and replay a scene from two years ago and not stop the scene where it stopped before, let it run on a bit, so that we can find out something that completely changes our sense of what happened in the scene we thought we already knew.
4 Ben gets beaten to a bloody pulp a lot. What’s your take on that?
I see that as a pressure release valve that the audience needs. If Ben gets away with too much for too long, I feel the audience might grow disgusted. So every so often, he has to pay down a penance for his sins. Also, I think the taking of a beating is a strategic tool that Ben employs. After all, he always comes out of the beating wounded but with an information advantage.
5 He would be good participant on Survivor, wouldn’t he?
Absolutely. He’s willing to sacrifice himself, his physical well being, in order to gain an advantage, no matter how small.
Source: Star Telegram
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