As if surviving a horrific crash wasn't bad enough, there's something truly terrifying inhabiting the island. Something the audience hasn't seen yet, but that a very select few characters on the series have met face-to-face. Starring Naveen Andrews, Matthew Fox, Dominic Monaghan, Ian Somerhalder, and Evangeline Lilly - to name just a few - "Lost" succeeds in bringing something brand spanking new and fresh to TV.
INTERVIEW WITH NAVEEN ANDREWS ('Sayid'):
Have you shot your backstory episode?
Yes. We’ve shot that and it should be out in two or three weeks.
What’s it like shooting parallel stories?
It was great. A lot of fun. I was very lucky in that I had a very good cast to work with, and also to put roots down for the character. You get this whole sense of what he’s been through in terms of being a soldier in the Republican Guard in the way Iraq was at that time. And also what happens to him on the island is crazy, just crazy.
Will it change the way you play the character?
Very much so. You now see him going in a more… I won’t say who, but he links up romantically with one of the other women on the island.
Is it weird to do several episodes before you learn something new?
No, because I think one of the great things about this particular medium as opposed to film, which as you know is a beginning, an arc and an end. It’s finite. With this, you're basically learning about the character as the audience does. I think that’s the kind of balance that should happen. And at first, it was scary. It was frightening to be literally shooting in the dark. But if we were given all those beats to play early on, say in the pilot, if I knew what his backstory was, who he was going to link with, I would have played all those beats. And it wouldn’t have been appropriate. It wouldn’t have been good. It wouldn’t have worked, in other words.
You do, obviously, make some wrong choices that would show, but I think it’s pretty good not knowing. And it’s only something that I’ve recently perceived. I perceived it about two weeks into it. I remember talking to [the show’s creators, JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof] and they said, “Well, how much would you like to know? Do you need to know?” And I said, “No, I’d actually prefer not knowing.” You don’t want to play something that you hit it over a hammer and then when it finally comes… It shouldn’t be a surprise for the wrong reasons. It should be a surprise for the right reasons.
What do you think is in the woods?
We honestly don’t know what it is. At first I thought it was like a Dr. Moreau thing, like somebody must have built something that goes around and eats people. But I honestly think it’s a device put in by the producers that if any of the actors get out of hand, they get eaten by a monster. And it’s true. Everyone’s s**t scared of being eaten.
So if you behave, we’ll never find out?
But somebody’s going to blow their top. You know what actors are like. Somebody’s not going to come out of their trailer. Somebody’s going to freak out at one point for whatever reason, and they’ll get eaten. And you don’t even have to see it. Just, “Oh, he got eaten.”
If you were in that position, would you move by the water supply or stay with the fire?
I’d stay with the fire because we haven’t been there that long. Somebody could come. We already know what’s lurking in the interior. Christ, I want to be away from that as long as possible.
Is it hard to get into the mindset of this island survivor when you’re living the life of luxury in Hawaii?
We’re all very different actors. Some of us, I guess, try to go for as much of the reality as we possibly can. In so much, in so far as is humanly possible to do so. Eventually, we’re all going to have to start looking like skeletons at some point. But at this point in time, it’s still too early to show things like rotting sores.
And there’s enough boar…
I sincerely hope so.
Have things changed a lot for you yet with the success of “Lost?”
One of the nicest things about being in Hawaii is that we’re away from all that bulls**t. We’re not really aware of it in the same way as we would be if we were in LA. And it’s great because none of that s**t has anything to do with the work.
Are you getting better opportunities?
Oh yeah, definitely. And I have to face the fact that a lot of people watch television. It’s a different level of fame. It’s not like an arthouse movie-kind of thing. You literally are in people’s homes. And that’s different, I have to say.
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Naveen Andrews Discusses "Easy" and "Bride and Prejudice"
