7 Questions with Matthew Fox

First, seven things to know about Matthew Fox:

1. He grew up on an Indian reservation where his father raised cattle and grew barley for Coors beer.
2. He made his television debut on Wings.
3. His first big break was on Party of Five where he played the patriarch Charlie Salinger opposite Scott Wolf and Neve Campbell.
4. He modeled and chewed tobacco at the same time.
5. He’s married and has two children who are with him while he shoots Lost on location in Hawaii.
6. He went to Columbia where he played football.
7. He’s a closet smoker.

Zimbio: Now that the strike is over and you can shoot a few more episodes of Lost, what is the feeling on the set?
Matthew Fox: Panic. [Laughs] No, it's been chaotic, as it always is this time of year for us. I mean, we're doing many shows. I think we're shooting three episodes simultaneously, so it's anywhere between two and three units working at the same time. Going back and forth between them and shooting things very out of sequence, which you always do, but like when you're covering three episodes, it's a lot. But it's great. It's really great.


Zimbio: With only a few episodes left, is there still time to really forward the story?
Matthew Fox: Oh, yeah. You won't believe what happens in the next five episodes. The show is building to its climax of the year and a lot of things are happening and it's big and it's going to be good. I think it's been a good year for us. The strike, obviously, was difficult, just because we were really on a roll through [episode] eight, then we took this break. But I think everybody was really excited to get back to it.

Zimbio: Is doing the flash forward stuff very different for you?
Matthew Fox: Well, Jack's a frickin' mess in the future so that has not been pleasant to revisit that. It's never fun to put yourself into a place where you're suicidal and really, really messed up and desperate. So he's really gotten to the rock bottom, but I understand why we're taking him there. There will be a turn in there where he begins to sort of build towards a redemption. Taking him to the very pit of despair is going to make that more rewarding, I think.

Zimbio: Well, he seemed all right when he visited Kate in court.
Matthew Fox: Well, yeah. There was a period when he gets back where he's built a construct of denial that he still can maintain. But things start to intrude on that bubble of denial and he can no longer maintain the lie that he's telling himself and things start to fall apart.


Zimbio: Do you like playing flawed heroes better than total good guys?
Matthew Fox: Yeah, I do. I don't really buy into the notion of pure heroes. I think that's kind of an antiquated idea. For me, it's more exciting to play somebody who's actually very human, like we all are, and flawed in many ways, but in very, very difficult circumstances does heroic things and finds some redemption in that. That's, I think, really interesting and challenging and more relatable, for me anyway.

Zimbio: You're in the movie version of Speed Racer this summer. Were you a fan of the cartoon?
Matthew Fox: I wasn't. I didn't grow up in a household where television was allowed. My first attraction to the project was the Wachowskis, them as filmmakers and knowing that they were going to be doing something really innovative and different. When I met with Larry and Andy the first time, after that meeting I started punching up the imagery, and when I saw it, I immediately recognized it. It was in my consciousness, but I don't think I'd ever seen an episode in full. So I went and got a bunch and watched a bunch of the original source material, which was really fun. My kids are now watching it and are really fired up. It's really cool. I mean, there are so many very cool things about it and I can completely understand why, in the 1960s, that style of anime was so intriguing and grabbed so many people, like Larry and Andy. They were huge fans of it.


Zimbio: No TV? What's the deal with that?
Matthew Fox: My father was part of a religious cult. [Laughs] No, he wasn't so much anti-television, he was just pro-books. Both my mom and dad were and that's important to me and my wife and I. I mean, we allow our kids some television. We certainly allow them cool movies and some television, but it's limited. I think it's really important that they develop their own imaginations and find and use those imaginations. A great thing about being in Hawaii is they spend a lot of time outside. I just watched my daughter catch like five or six waves within a half an hour the other day, and ride them. She's 11 and really just suddenly discovered surfing. She's amazing. It's like she's been doing it her [whole life]. It's really amazing to see. That's a fatherly tangent right there.

Q&A by Fred Topel 


Lost airs at its new time on ABC, Thursdays at 10PM