Michael Emerson Talks Lost Season 4 and The Beginning of the End
Posted by Jon Lachonis on 01/10 at 04:53 PM
What does the future hold for Lost season 4? The stranglehold of the WGA strike has already forced a lot of fans into accepting that season 4 will consist of a scant eight episodes. With the eventual length and uncertainty of yet another return to the air, some might say Lost fans have let their morbid curiosity get the best of them. Still, as the 31st of January draws closer, fans are slowly starting to look away from the grim state of the strike and to the future premier of what could be the most anticipated season of Lost so far.
We had the opportunity to talk with Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) about the strike, season 4, and the ambiguity of heroics. As usual, the ever thoughtful Emerson did not disappoint. Now, if he could only summon a little Ben Linus and jump into the WGA negotiations.
With the strike going on and on, is it looking like we’ll see more than eight episodes of Ben Linus this winter? I haven’t really wrapped my mind around the idea that we might not complete this season, but I suppose it is a possibility. But, if the strike ends would we not just come back and shoot episode nine of [Lost] Season 4?
There seems to be varying opinions on what the ‘drop dead’ date is… Yes. And of course they will eventually get into all sorts of contractual entanglements, with actors that have summer work already planned.
We try not to think about that though. One issue, it seems, from ABC’s perspective is sticking to the promise of no repeats. I think you’re right, but at the same time the sort of restlessness that came with season two doesn’t really seem to be a factor anymore. In this new context of “We’d rather have some, then none,” I think the audience would be more forgiving. The strike has raised some interesting challenges that a lot of us thought we’d never have to deal with.
When did they first break it to the cast and crew that the end date had been set?The first I heard about it as an idea was when we did a group press junket in LA, about a year ago. It was something hosted by Jimmie Kimmel. We were taking Q&A and Damon or Carlton responded to a question about letting it run into the ground, and they answered “no as a matter of fact we’re considering naming an end date,” and I thought at the time “Wow, what a great idea.” To really put the gauntlet down, and say we’re not playing here, and we’re not going to wear out our welcome, we’re going to tell the rest of this story and we are going to do it in 48 episodes.
Has it created urgency for the characters to show progression?
Everybody felt it like a burst of energy, which could have been for nothing if the scripts hadn’t continued to be taut. The stakes got even higher, and we were all saying “wow, they are not playing around here,” they are really going to cram a lot into the next three seasons of work. We’ve been shooting long and hard on season 4, at a pace and urgency I haven’t seen before.
Getting back to the story; it always struck me that all of Ben’s manipulations seem to be in protection of some greater good. Is Ben a stealth hero?
Well that’s what I’ve always expected would be the “long arc” of this character. It fits in with the way these writers use mis-direction. At the very least, they are going to make us question how we evaluate Ben on an ongoing basis. Just when we think he is the Antichrist they’re going to do something that makes us say “oh, maybe we’re wrong.” They sort of delight in yanking around the characters like that.
It’s amazing how they can do that without running the gag into the ground. Sawyer was sort of a Ben in the beginning, dark and unlikable, Jack was the opposite, a hero with a dark side, fallible. Joseph Campbell pointed out that all heroes appear as villains at some point in their journey… I think Damon and Carlton are keenly aware of how that whole thing works, and are followers of Campbell as well.
I hope so. I kind of get the feeling that the talk early on about the show being about people, and not so much the mythology, was a misdirection of sorts in itself because the story seems to have the feel of a cosmogonic cycle. The birth and death of a fantastic world… Yeah, I agree with you. That’s well put. This is a good conversation, like grown-ups talking about the show. [laughs] I like the levels that it works on. It’s more than just that adventure story. It’s not essential that it be more, but it is.
It sort of draws you in with familiar archetypical ideas and characters, then does its own dance away from that. Definitely. I think people were disappointed when they found it wasn’t literally purgatory, even though it still is a purgatory on a more metaphorical level. People’s personalities are being tested and challenged, on this island. And it doesn’t have to be explicitly purgatory for it to have a purgatorial nature, which is always exciting.
I was always surprised how people got so disappointed by the more mundane explanations being disproved… …the last scream before dying, All that…
Have they shared with you just what the island is?No, no, I think Matt and Evangeline may know, but maybe not.
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