Thanks to Tom and GreekCharmed for the following.
Matthew Fox has one of those superfirm handshakes that catches you off-guard and makes you wish you'd caught his hand with just that bit more force. Fox is every inch the sort of intense, super- focused Hollywood player you'd expect Dr Jack Shephard (the character from the epic TV show Lost he has spent the last six years playing) to be if he was an actor.
From the very first episode, Jack is at the heart of the show. It's through his eyes that we first find out where we are, as he wakes up, stumbles out of the jungle, and into the middle of a plane crash on a beach littered with bodies and the burning remnants of Oceanic Flight 815. He's the instant leader, the hunky doctor whose medical instincts kick in, framing him as the classic reluctant hero. Not the sort of character you'd expect to wind up a few years later as a junkie with a serious deathwish. Will his heroic nature return as we approach the sixth and final season?
"When Damon [Lindelof, co-creator and executive producer of Lost] and I started talking about Jack in the pilot, neither of us was interested in having him play the knight in shining armour," explains Fox. "I think the audience would have been bored to death. But what we wanted to do was set him up that way, have the audience believe he was going to be that way, and have the people on the island look to him for that kind of leadership – then completely destroy him."
Fox is obviously invested in the character and the show, and is the only cast member who has been told by the producers what the final image of the whole show is going to be – although when pressed, he won't be any more specific than "It's going to be really beautiful and powerful, and I can't wait to see how we end up there". Either he is very tight with the execs, or maybe he is going to be the last person we see, closing the series that he opened.
As you would imagine, Fox is happy to talk about character arcs, plot developments and the overall thematic meaning of Lost – but when it comes to answering those burning questions the series has raised, he is more elusive.
Do you know what the temple is? "No."
Do you know about the smoke monster? "Er, yeah."
Can you say anything about it? "Er, no."
Did they really need to be down in the hatch pushing the button? [Long pause] "Yes."
Do you know what the numbers mean? "No."
Will we find out how Jack's dad is connected to the island? "I do anticipate some resolution in that."
Do you know who the Others are and what they were doing on the island in the first place? "I don't know the answer to that one, but I'm sure we will. I haven't been informed."
There's a cheeky grin on his face as he runs through this. Fox admits that "knowing stuff that the audience want to know . . . it's a quite a power trip, to be completely honest with you. But the truth is that nobody really wants to know. If you're reading a really good book – I don't know too many people who want to turn to the final page and find out how it ends."
Lost is the perfect show for the internet – packed with enough teasing plot twists, game-changing cliffhangers and bright red herrings (come on, what was that shark with the Dharma logo about?) to keep a world of bloggers and messageboards poring over every move the Dharma Initiative makes. This level of rabid attention is also a major problem for the production team – how do you write a TV show that is based on secrets and revelations in the age of the spoiler; when there are thousands of fan sites desperate to leak, theorise or suggest where the story might go next?
"There are certain scenes that are never published in scripts," Fox explains. "Every year, near the end, there are scenes that are omitted and the only people who ever know what's involved in that scene are the actors and a skeleton crew. We've had a leak – they're probably sitting in Guantánamo Bay right now," he deadpans.
Source: Full Interview @ The Guardian
