Thanks to the TV Addict for the following interview.
Who is excited for the 4th Season Premiere of Lost? That’s me, raising my hands and flailing about with glee. In my quest to complete Season 1 through 3 before January 31 (that’s a story for another day), my love for the show has been completely renewed. Also helping to get me pumped about the new Thursday night time slot? A remarkably sincere and charming woman by the name of Elizabeth Mitchell (LOST’s own Juliet) who recently spent a good chunk of her afternoon chatting with me about what to expect and why she loves her character! A big thank you to all of the readers who contributed questions!
Lost is one of my favorite shows. It’s been one of my favorite shows, so I’m excited to talk with you about it.
Oh, I love it too! I’m always really happy to talk about it.
You’re no stranger to being a star on one of TV’s most talked about shows, specifically your arc on ER. How is Lost different?
I think the main difference is that the character was so complete in how much we got to see, how much they wrote for her, there was a beginning, a middle, and an end. There was just a huge arc where we got to see so many facets of this very complicated person [with Legaspi on ER]. And I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to do that yet. And I also think that LOST is kind of huge in a way that I’ve never worked on a show that’s quite like this. I’ve never worked on a show that has this kind of following. ER was also huge, but a different kind of huge. Not better, not different. And I think with LOST, you have people who follow it pretty religiously and know every detail about it. I think they were so smart, the way they brought the character in. We have all the protagonists, we have everybody that we love and then to bring in someone that was a threat to them, that was an antagonist, always going to be someone that we were unsure of was a really good move. It gave them something to explore the other characters, and explore this character, and every single time that they added something to the character, I was always impressed with the way they did it. And the Ben role, as well. They did great things with the two of those roles. And I’ve really loved what Michael’s done, actually.
One of the biggest things we’ve heard from readers is an outcry for the fact that you and Michael were robbed of the multiple nominations you so definitely deserve. I can’t imagine why you aren’t being celebrated as much as you have.
Thank you very much. I’ve had the best time, as far as people on the street, or people talking about the character. It’s the strangest thing, but very gratifying to get that kind of feedback. When you do theatre, you go back stage, and people will talk about it, whether or not they liked it, and they definitely let you know, haha, and a lot of times you’ll do television, which I’ve been doing forever, or film, and you never really hear, but with LOST, I hear it all the time. At first, I heard when I was hated, hahaha, and then as the character, they started to make her more and more and more and more and more kind of interesting, I would hear this “hey, I actually really liked that, I thought that was really cool” or someone walking down the street saying “you terrify me and I work with really scary people”, but all of that has been really fun. It’s been really great to play a character that people are interested in. And that is something that I really experience first hand. I have played characters that I’ve heard about, but not on this daily basis. I can’t explain it other than to say that it’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
Why do you think fans embraced your character so openly and the character that Michael plays so openly, when other characters (ahem, Nikki and Paulo…) don’t fare as well?
I really do think it was a setup for the other characters. I think that what happened is that we really fell in love with our survivors. We didn’t want to see more survivors. We wanted to see someone come in who was posing a threat or being something different. I just think we didn’t want to see other people, who weren’t going to be the people that we love, unless they were with the people we love, and I think that’s why they were so smart when they did the Ben and the Juliet characters, that they kind of dropped them in as these great antagonists, we were really worried about Ben and Juliet. And there’s a little bit of, not a thrill, but a sense of unease that goes through us when we see these two people interacting with the people that we actually really love. I think it was a particularly good setup for me. I was very surprised with how it turned out. You wouldn’t think that these characters would be remotely likeable, but the way they’ve written them, they’ve written in that.
I agree completely! When people ask me who my favorite characters are, never would I have thought to say Juliet and Ben in the beginning, but now hands down, I say Juliet and Ben every time.
They’re so interesting, I mean, they really are, and they keep writing them so interesting, they’re just really interesting people. And they keep that going. They keep going into what makes us identify with them, and we can’t believe we’re identifying with them, and then we’re feeling like we’ve really been cheated, and we can’t believe we like her. The minute anyone started to like Juliet, they turned it right around and were like “oh you were dumb to like her”. I love that, I thought that was great.
I love when a twist comes up like that, you’re right back where you started, and she has to redeem herself for me!
Absolutely, it’s like “She’s just bad news. Well, no she’s not.” I love all that, she’s really fun. I think it was fun for them. They had a very clear idea for what they wanted when they brought Juliet in and I think it was really fun for them that they got to continue to write for her in a way that they wanted to.
What’s coming up for Juliet in the fourth season?
A little bit more of the same with a new set of circumstances. Based on the end, we know that someone is coming to rescue everyone and that has to be dealt with. There’s more that happens in her relationships. There’s more that happens where we see, as it always is on LOST, a little more of who she is, and a little bit less of who she is. She skirts the line pretty nicely. She has been with the survivors for, well, I mean in LOST terminology, a little bit of time now. She’s a little bit more rougher, and I’m kind of enjoying that. There’s not a tremendous amount of makeup that goes in to that, there’s a lot of dirt.
I was wondering, do you have like six of the same dirty outfits that you have to wear?
I really do, I think I have four. They wash them, and they dirty them again, which I think is hilarious, too. So you think you’d be with these people, we might smell terrible, but no, everybody is all clean, it’s just movie dirt, but they do do a wonderful job of keeping us really really pretty filthy.
Do you have a flashforward or flashback that we will be seeing?
I do have one, yes!
Everybody thought that your two flashbacks from last year were some of the best of the season.
I really enjoyed mine last year. I really did think that they were some of my favorite work that I’ve ever done. I had such a good time.
Read the rest of the Interview here
Source: The TVAddict
