The final entry in our series of Lost on-set interviews is with Josh Holloway. As bad boy con artist Sawyer, he’s the guy some fans love to hate, and other fans just love. Sawyer has made quite the journey over the first three seasons, making enemies, possibly finding love with Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and exacting revenge on the man who he deemed responsible for the death of his parents. What does season 4 of Lost have in store for Sawyer?
On his set visit to Hawaii in October, BuddyTV contributing writer Jon Lachonis sat down with the charming Southern boy to learn his thoughts on where his character is going in the new season. Continue reading to read the full transcript and listen to the mp3 audio file of the interview.
How is season 4 going for you so far? Do you think there’s a lot of new surprises for the fans?
Oh, absolutely. It’s truly. . .it truly astounds me still that they can shock us as a cast and completely blow us away, because we of course have been involved with it since the beginning. Though we are on a need to know basis, we have ideas and so forth, and a little more information. But this season has really — boy, has it gotten concise. Now that they’ve been able to give an end date to the show there’s no more wasting time to elongate the story or whatever. Now it’s like razor sharp focus, so hold on to your seats because every episode is bam bam bam. It’s really moving the story along.
For Sawyer himself, in season 3 he seemed to develop in the light side and the dark side at the same time. Is that something that will continue in season 4?
Yes. The nature of his character has been that he’s constantly battling the good in him versus what he’s learned as a defense mechanism pretty much in the world, which is kind of his evil side. This whole character’s journey has been a journey to his humanity I feel like, but he has big slips. Last year, when he started killing and just became a killer all of a sudden, it was disturbing to him as well. I think he’s kind of hit the wall with the threats of these other people, with the threats of the island, with the never knowing if he’s getting off, not knowing if he wants to get off, he don’t even know anymore. But he hit the wall last year, like enough of these people, and that killer came out.
In season 4, he’s kind of backpedaling a little bit. I think in his own psyche and his whole make up he’s trying to not go to the dark side. It’s that fine line constantly with his character, and I think he scares himself sometimes. This time he’s not really. . .on the outside he’s not showing that he cares about that or other people’s judgments, but he does, and he realized he overstepped something within himself. That’s gonna take some working out, and hopefully he won’t go fully to the dark side, but we’ll see. I’m open, whichever way they want to go, it’s just fun to walk the line. I love walking the line.
As far as your career outside of Lost, has the new shooting schedule and the reduced demands of that opened new opportunities for you?
Well, it’s kind of hard to tell right now because of the impending strike. We thought we were going to have all this time to possibly pursue some movies, but the problem is that they’re moving production up. All the movies that would have gone normally in March, go now in December or January because they’re trying to get production beginning before the strike’s in. So I don’t know, it’s all up in the air right now, but yes, theoretically, yes. We would have a lot more time to pursue other options, which really I’m looking forward to. As an actor, I love doing this job, I love Sawyer. But I’m an actor, I want to explore some other things. In that limited pocket before, it’s very difficult to find a role that you can do during that pocket and that is the right role to do. Now, getting in the movie business is like playing chess. You make the wrong moves early on, you’re done. Now I’ve made some mistakes, I’ve learned from them, and I’m being patient and waiting. Doing a lot of auditioning, a lot of meeting people, so we shall see.
With the new people on the island, has that moved the threats away from being centered on the island? Is everything on the outside now, or are there still issues to deal with on the island itself in the new season?
Both. Both, definitely. The new people arriving just opens the story up even bigger. It doesn’t go one direction or the other, one doesn’t isolate or cancel the other out. They’re brilliant [the writers], they timed it perfectly. So they add another dynamic pretty much, and also the dynamic of are we getting off? Are we not? Let me see, what did you guys see last time? You know that Naomi dropped in, you know her.
Yep, and we know that someone on the freighter named Minkowski–
Okay, so you got the freighter. It’s gonna blow your mind, I’m not kidding you, where this goes. These people, the arrival of these other people I guess, is the beginning of the intertwining of the story. It’s all gonna come together, they’re a major part of it too. You’re just not gonna believe it.
Would you go as far as to say that they’re connected to the island?
That I’m not quite sure yet. I don’t really know, honestly from what I’ve gotten so far, how involved they are or how connected they are personally. Are they just a tool? I don’t know. I don’t know if they know exactly what their part is too, but that could also be a reveal later. As for the rest of it, I can’t really tell.
– Interview conducted by BuddyTV contributing writer Jon Lachonis
(Image courtesy of ABC)
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