Finalmente o DVD da 3a temporada de Lost foi lançado no Brasil e graças a Kary e a Clarisse, agora o mundo todo já sabe o que Carlton Cuse, Evangeline Lilly e Josh Holloway pensam tanto do episodio em si como de Kate&Sawyer ^^Pra variar as Jaters já deram um jeitinho de colocar seus óculos especias para ver Jack&Kate onde ele não existe... confiram os detalhes no CSI: Skate ;)
Bem, sem mais enrolação, aqui vai a transcrição completa dos comentarios, feita pela Leah Kate e os videos upados no youtube pela Clarisse:
EL: This is Evangeline Lilly, and this is "I Do.."
CC: Hi, this is Carlton Cuse.
JH: And this is Josh Holloway. Good morning.
CC: And we're here to talk about Episode 3 of 6, of Lost... give you a little insight into what went into making this episode, or lack of insight into what went into making this episode.
EL: [laughs]
CC: And, uh, here we go.
[flashback scene of Kate walking down hotel hallway]
JH: Wow.
CC: Who's this mysterious person?
JH: I don't know. But the music's kinda flirty.
CC: [laughs] Oh, could that be...
[shot of Kate's gift bag]
JH: A gift for me?
CC: ... Kate Austen? She's... [Kate turns and we see her face] Oh, there we go!
JH: Oh, goodness.
CC: So obviously this is a Kate flashback episode.
EL: Obviously. In the, uh, in the scene coming up, in the moment coming up where I run out the door, and jump on the cop? Um, there was actually one scene where I was so vigorous with my jumping that I accidentally [laughing] knocked him into the wall behind him, and he almost fell over.
CC: [laughs] Nathan Fillion is the,uh... you'll see him in a minute here. Well-known from Joss Whedon's Firefly, and uh...
EL: He was great to work with. He was so much fun, and so professional, he was such a gentleman. He was sort of the character in so many ways, because he was that guy that instantly you felt you could trust. You know, he was just really a good man.
[shot of Kate talking to Kevin through door]
JH: Look at you, you look like a little 1950s airline stewardess... I love it.. what you've got goin' on there.
EL: [laughing]
JH: Right? Betty Crocker, watch out.
EL: See, this is what I...
[Kate leaps on Kevin, everyone yells "Ohhh!"]
JH: Oh, it's a tree frog! Oh my goodness.
[Everyone laughing]
CC: Man, can you slam dunk? Look at your elevation there.
EL: That was the moment, where I threw him against the wall in one of the takes.
JH: You are spry...
[scene of Kate waking up to Sawyer throwing rocks in the cages]
CC: So, we sort of, Damon and I wrote this episode as a little mini season finale. When we originally aired these episodes, obviously the first six were aired in one block in the fall, the idea being that the other sixteen episodes of the show were gonna air in the spring, and we knew that this was gonna be the last episode of the first block, so we tried to really kind of create a cliffhanger. And this is also really the episode that kind of brought to an end this whole story of our guys in captivity, and although there's still a little bit of it that carries over into the next episodes, this is really the episode that we viewed as the kind of climax to that story, where finally, we were gonna resolve, you know, what was happening to Kate and Sawyer here in captivity.
[scene changes from Kate/Sawyer to Jack/Juliet/Ben inside Hydra]
JH: Carlton, could you please not talk while I'm on screen?
EL: [laughs]
JH: Thank you, thank you. No...
EL: I think one of the coolest things about this whole storyline that happened in the cages was that, um, I really adored... and I've been trying to work it out for awhile, because the cages were a really unique acting experience for me and what I realized after awhile, was that we, you know, Josh and I, were playing scenes that were more intimate than anything that we'd ever done on the show before, and yet we had to play them from a physical proximity that was so far away, so we were projecting intimacy across a yard, rather than...
JH: Yeah, that was interesting. We had to find a way to figure out that puzzle.
EL: Yeah. And I think that made it really intense, you know, as actors and hopefully on screen... because instead of the intimacy being played with a physical touch, or with, you know, physical intimacy, getting close to each other.... it all had to be in our voices, our eyes, you know, sending messages.
JH: And at the same time you had to watch out for the trap of being in the same shot every time, pinned against the bars looking at each other.
EL: [laughing] Yeah!
JH: So you had to work around the same, uh... where you're drawn to is to the bars to see each other, so you had to work around that, to add some dimension, which was pretty interesting.
EL: Yeah.
CC: What was interesting was that I'd never had an experience before where an actor like Josh would call me up and say 'I want to rehearse these intimate moments with Kate with you', and um..
JH: [talking over him] And a video camera, if you could, uh..
EH: [laughs]
CC: ...as a writer it was very flattering.
[JH and EL both laughing]
CC: And yet, strangely, you know... it was very... it was very...
JH: Just because I wanted to switch out, so Kate could watch what I do while I kissed you, doesn't mean, you know, anything, Carlton. I'm a strict professional.
EL: And I love the stuff inside as well, where you know, again there's that physical barrier, not a yard between them, but there's that glass between them, where they're always playing these scenes that are so intense that if they could touch, there would be this instant explosion, but they can't. So, there's a certain, again, there's something that's being held back, and yet thrown forward with more fervor because they have to get it through that glass without being able to actually, physically break that boundary.
CC: Right.
[scene of Kate and Kevin in bed together]
CC: I mean, thematically what we were trying to explore here was this notion of, you know, Kate's ability to commit, and you know, we've established her as a character who likes to run, and it's not just literally running as a fugitive, but also sort of running from difficult emotional situations. And we sort of see in her flashback the story of her marriage, which we had mentioned in a previous episode, and sort of hinted that she had briefly been married, and we thought, okay, now let's tell the story of that time in which she actually did finally get married. And we see her kind of getting close with this guy, and, you know, in love with this guy, but there's just something in her DNA as a character that will not allow to, you know, kind of stay with him. And obviously circumstances are also very difficult, because here she is, a fugitive, married to a cop, and you know, that's not gonna have a good ending.
[JH and EL laugh]
JH: Always ends in blood and tears.
CC: In the meantime, the parallel on the island is, she and, you know, you have Kate and Sawyer, who are these two characters who are obviously really, there's this incredible thing happening between them, and yet both of them I think are afraid of, you know, this sort of intimacy and kind of connection, and they're drawn to and also sort of afraid of the feelings that they have between each other at the same time.
EL: And I love the contrast between the two stories because every element of them is completely opposite to the other. So when Kate is with her husband in the flashbacks, she wants it so badly, and yet she knows she can't have it. And yet with Sawyer, she so desperately doesn't want to go there, and doesn't want that thing to happen, but she can't seem to stop it from happening, because there's this momentum and this chemistry between them that she can't really help. And, you know, where she's relatively free in the flashbacks to make it happen, she's not in a cage, and she's not being forced to do labor every day, it's actually more difficult for her to stay in that house, and you know, cook breakfast, and be a little housewife, than it is for her to break rocks and work in a quarry and sleep in a cage. And there's all these contrasts that happened that I just love, because I think the island represents who she truly is in her heart, and the flashback represents who she wishes she was.
CC: Right. That's cool. So what is your process like, Evi, when you get a script like this? How much work do you do in preparation, do you do it like the night before? What's your sort of methodology?
EL: My methodology is to read the script for the first time as an audience member, so I just read it sheerly for the entertainment. I try to remove myself from the character and pretend like I don't have to play those scenes, and just react to them emotionally and see how they make me feel, so that I know what I want to project to the audience... I know what I want to make them feel. And then I go back and I re-read it as the character, and I actually try the scenes on while I'm reading them and I try reading them out loud and seeing how they feel emotionally. And, um, if there's anything that I come up against that feels like a wall, then I will explore that, but if there's anything that feels really natural and it just seems to flow, I will try very hard to then tuck that away, and pretend like I've never read it, because I know on the day, it's going to instinctively come out the way it most purely should. But if I come up against a wall in the script, then I'll work through the scene and I'll try it on a few different ways until it seems to fit, and I'll write down a note, as to like how it fit, and why it fit, and where I found the motivation. And then at that point I put the script away and I wait until I get to set. I don't memorize lines until I get to set, so that when they come out it feels spontaneous the way it does in real life. It feels like I'm trying to come up with the words as I'm saying them, as human beings do in everyday conversation.
JH: And I just grab it and go, 'cause I'm just that frickin' good, you know what I mean?
EL: [laughing]
JH: It's tough.. it's real tough.
[scene of Kate and Sawyer breaking rocks]
EL: This scene! Remember this scene, where I decided to be Paul Bunyan?
JH: Oh, yeah. [laughing]
EL:.. and I burnt a hole in my shoulder carrying burning hot logs?
JH: Nice one.
CC: Oh really? What happened?
EL: I still have a scar from it. Those logs that I threw in the fire at the beginning of the scene, I would carry them back and forth every take. And I'd throw them in the fire and then take them out and put 'em back on my shoulder, and then throw them in the fire, and take them out and put 'em back on my shoulder...
CC: Oh my God. [laughing]
[Alex shoots guard with slingshot]
JH: Nice one.. Oh!
CC: Ohh.. got him with a rock.
[Alex argues with Pickett while Kate and Sawyer are on the ground]
EL: I love how dirty we get in these quarries.
CC: Yeah.
JH: And what's so funny is that we're three times that dirty...
EL: Three times that dirty!
JH: It doesn't even read. We have to put so much on, I'd come home and Yessi's like, 'Where'd you come from, a coal mine?'
EL: [laughing] Yep.
[few seconds of silence as they watch Alex fight with Pickett]
EL: [affectionately] Scrawn. She's so great.
JH: Scrawn. That's her nickname. Little Scrawn.
CC: Who?
EL: Tania.
[shot of Kate laying on the ground]
JH: And that nickname there is Clevie, I believe, right?
EL: Ohh... you had to.
JH: Whoops.
[laughter]
JH: Whoops, had to do that.
EL: Hey, I didn't choose the outfits.
JH: Oh, goodness.
CC: We had a... another scene in the storyline which did not make the show which was the scene where we actually explain what they were doing out there, which was building a runway.
JH: Right.
EL: Yes.
CC: ..and, so that sort of was one those little... you can kind of hear about it online, because we showed a clip of it in a..
JH: There was an explanation, wasn't there?
CC: Yep.
EL: Yeah.
JH: Because I just said it again in a previous episode, I mean one just recently, and I was like, Didn't I say that before? But it was never used.
CC: That's right, it was never used.
EL: That happens often on the show, where we'll film a scene, and then it'll be cut out, and then a few episodes later, we're given the same lines, and you think, No, I said that already.. I did that already! And you're like, oh yeah, we never used it.
CC: Yeah, well there was particularly the, uh...
[scene of Juliet and Kate talking to each other intensely]
JH: Kiss her. Kiss her...
CC: [laughing]
EL: [laughing] Jeez.
CC: ..the um, the whole thing where you and Alex basically, uh, she says where'd you get that dress?
EL: Yeah.
CC: And she says it looks good on you, it's mine...
EL: Yes... Yes!
CC: We did that like four times and kept cutting it out...
EL: [laughing] I know, I know.
CC: I thnk you must have been like, What is going on here, what are these guys...? But it was like, it was a gag we really wanted to do, but we kept cutting it out of the show and cutting it out of the show, so we'd write it into the next episode, and then the next episode.
[Juliet asks Kate to put the bag over her head]
EL: That line.. "You think I'm gonna put it over my head just because you said please?"
CC: Yeah.
EL: I could not get that line out for the life of me. It was, like, twenty takes of me bursting out laughing because I couldn't say it right, and then Elizabeth says, "No, I want you to put a hood over your head..." and again she started stumbling over "hood over your head," and we both ended up having to loop the line.
JH: It's 'cause it's really a man's line.
[laughter]
JH: You should put the hood over your head, darling.
EL: Hood over your head. Say that six times fast.
JH: [laughing]
[Kate trying on her wedding dress]
CC: We loved the transition of going from the hood over Kate's head to her in her veil.
JH: Nice.
CC: And the original idea was actually was she was gonna actually lift up her veil and look at each other, but that wasn't sort of the setup...
JH: You look so different!
EL: [laughing] Oh, and that dress became an issue. And my little sister watched this episode with me when I was ADRing it, she was in the stage with me. And she just kept going, 'You look ridiculous. Who is that? You look ridiculous!' Because she could barely recognize me.
CC: Nah, you look beautiful.
JH: It's great, though, that you can look so different.
EL: This dress was a nightmare. I had to go into a rental shop in Hawaii and look for a dress, and we couldn't find anything. Eventually we ended up bringing this one in from England, from a designer who said he'd like to make it for the show. And then the morning of.. the morning we shot this scene, I was in my trailer, and they were literally cutting off pieces of the dress, and sewing it in, and sewing it onto my body, because it needed to be altered, but we had twenty minutes to alter it before we started shooting.
CC: The problem is, basically, everything we do in an episode, we're not really that far ahead of the show in terms of writing these episodes, and so we'll finish a script five or six days, you know, business days, ahead of when it actually films. So then it gets sent to Hawaii and the actors read it. The actors really are kind of at the same... they don't know what's coming up either, they get the script and then read and study it, and I think it really makes the show great, because it makes it very present. You know, the actors are sort of acting in that moment. They don't know necessarily what's happened in their pasts that hasn't been told yet, or what's going on in the future. I mean, I think that's a good thing, don't you?
JH: I love it.
EL: It works both ways, you know. Sometimes it can be a hindrance. There are times when you're like, 'Oookay, well if I had known I did that, I would have played this scene really differently.' But then most of the time, I think what it does is it gives you that true to life experience of, you know, not always referring to everything that's happened in your past, or knowing what's gonna happen in your future.
CC: Yeah, I really think it makes the show feel like that, you know, everybody is in that same moment, the same moment that the audience is in, just experiencing the story as it's being told.
EL: Yeah.
[Juliet takes the bag off Kate's head in the hydra station]
CC: And, uh, this is the first scene in six episodes where Kate and Jack have seen each other, and this was a really big moment for us, just because we'd been telling this story, and it was so segmented. I mean, Jack and Kate and Sawyer were all in this Hydra Station that the Others have constructed on this little Alcatraz island, but Kate and Jack, this is the first moment in these first six hours that they actually see each other, when, you know, Kate discovers that Jack is actually here and that he's okay. And obviously there's a developing romantic triangle... there's actually a quadrangle.
EL: Quadrangle. [laughs] There's definitely a quadrangle.
CC: Because, you know, you have Josh, you have Sawyer on the other side of it. And just the symbolism of them sort of stuck between this glass here was also kind of an interesting part of the thematic storyline, because again there are all these walls and barriers that exist between Kate and the men in her life.
EL: Yeah. And they're all very invisible, which I love about the glass scene. The cages are a clear barrier, but the glass is invisible, and it distorts things and gives you an implied sense of intimacy that isn't actually there. And I think that is totally the story of Kate's life with anyone she ever tries to get close to, even including her mother, which is so tragic - that she doesn't seem to ever really be able to connect or be one with other human beings. And I think that she's a really tortured soul because of that.
CC: Right. And I think that some of those things are maybe at the core of why all these characters are on the island in the first place.
EL: The island seems to represent that missing link, um... All of these people have issues with intimacy, have issues with their own redemption, with their own love for themselves, and it's like the island is that barrier now. The island has literally sequestered them from the rest of the world and the rest of humanity.
[Kate sobs to Jack that they're going to kill Sawyer]
JH: I'm sorry, I was just watching.
[laughter]
JH: This commentary thing's tough. I'm just sittin' here, checkin' it out.
CC: Did you ever see this episode Josh?
JH: I did. Yeah, I've seen.. It's wonderful. Actually, I'm crying right now. [whimpers] Stop it, Kate. You're s'posed to love me.
EL: [cracks up]
CC: But she does, Josh.
JH: It's awesome.
EL: That's been something actually that I've done a lot of searching to play, the triangle. Because there's the cliche of the triangle, but then there's the sort of reality of the fact that this woman actually loves two different men. It's not just that she decides to cheat on one, or that she lusts after one and loves the other. I really believe she loves both of these men for different reasons. And I've really done a lot of searching to find how to play those two things without them being the same.
CC: Yeah.
EL: Because you can't play your love for one person the same way you play your love for another person.
JH: And it's interesting because we're kind of two halves of the same type of person, which makes us, Jack and I, naturally connected.
EL: Hmm.
JH: It's a love-hate thing, we can't help but be intrigued by the other one, because we're the opposite ends of the spectrum.
EL: Yeah.
JH: And our core, I believe, is probably the same.
CC: Yeah, I think, because there are sort of, you know, good and bad qualities in both guys, and each guy is sort of capable of heroism, and you know, has his failings, and you know... Obviously it's really interesting because there's a real split in the fanbase between the Skaters and the Jaters.
[laughter]
CC: It is a raging debate, who Kate should end up with.
EL: And I really think that what Josh just said about them being two halves of the same whole is why she's so torn. Because really, ultimately, what she needs is..
CC: Both of them.
EL :.. a completely different man who incorporates both of them, instead of one or the other. [laughing]
JH: Hey, man...
CC: I thought you were gonna say she needs both of them together.
EL: [laughing]
JH: It's like, the new millennium, can't she have both? She's spry, she's energetic...
CC: She can move to Utah.
JH: She can move to Utah, exactly.
EL: [still laughing]
JH: Not a problem.
[Kate on the pay phone with the marshal]
EL: Now, Fred, who is the guy who plays the marshal, is the first actor that I ever acted with, in my entire career. I mean, my first scene on Lost was my first scene as an actress, and it was on the plane doing the crash, and Fred was who I was acting opposite. And I thought at that time, because he gets hit by the suitcase and dies pretty much in the pilot...
CC: [laughing] You would never see him again.
EL: [laughing] I would never see him again!
CC: And yet, twenty episodes later, it's like...
JH: Right. Freddy's back.
CC: Oh my God. The one thing about this show is you actually work more if you're dead.
EL: Yeah!
JH: That is true.
CC: It's like axiomatic, if your character's killed, you're more likely to show up. And, uh, yeah, so the marshal character was originally killed in the pilot, and you know, Damon and JJ thought he should...
JH: No, he was killed in the one right after where I shot him and missed.
EL: [laughing] Yeah.
CC: Well, no but the original idea was he was just gonna die in the pilot...
JH: Right.
CC: But then, it was just like, well let's keep him alive for episode one, and then he ends up dying in the first episode, and now all of a sudden in flashbacks... We've seen all these actors...
JH: Which is incredible, by the way. Let's just get to Sawyer's aim, you know...
EL: [laughs]
CC: Yeah.
JH: During the pilot, he takes out a polar bear at a full run, with a nine millimeter.
CC: After about nine shots.
JH: And after that? But after that, he can't even get his gun out, he can't hit anything, he can't hit a guy not movin'...
CC: Well that was why, literally, it was because of that...
JH: [laughing]
CC: We were sitting there, and I was like, he's gotta have, he's myopic. That's gotta be the problem, he doesn't have... he can't see.
JH: Ohhh...
CC: So that was how the idea came up to have Sawyer have glasses.
EL: Ohhh!
JH: Interesting!
EL: But he could see a big white ball of fur, because that... he would be able. You could see that..
CC: You could see that. How many shots did it take him to kill that damn polar bear?
EL: Absolutely. That's interesting.
CC: So, you know, eventually you'll... you know..
JH: Get lucky.
CC: Exactly. You get lucky eventually.
JH: And I love that, though. I love the fact that he starts out and people are like, wow, he's a good shot and everything. And then from like then on, everytime he reaches for his gun, he gets shot or he gets hit by a girl or he gets whacked by a stick or...
EL: [laughing]
JH: He never gets his arm around. He's like the slowest draw in town.
CC: Yeah. You know, I will say that Josh was awesome. He suffered an enormous amount of abuse in these first six episodes out here in this cage...
EL: Ohhh my goodness. And not just that, but like the whole show, I just finally reached a point where I would find myself on set feeling the sister, running up beside him going like 'You can't throw him on the ground again!' Not Kate, but Evi. 'You can't do...! You need to really work that scene so he's not being thrown on the ground again, 'cause he's just destoyed, physically!'
JH: Yeah, that was... I love physical scenes, and I'm a physical actor, so I enjoy that, but after awhile, playing also the mental side of that, it gets rough after awhile.. that sort of beat down.. you feel it, and take it home with you.
EL: Yeah.
JH: And I'm like, Baby, give me a hug when I get home.
CC: Well, Sawyer has really gone through a lot of, you know, a real evolution over the course of this year.
JH: Yeah.
CC: From being sort of victimized at the beginning, and then coming back, and kind of getting strong, and then some also fun stuff with Sawyer, and then there's this very sort of dark turn at the end of the season.
JH: Absolutely. It's been quite a wonderful journey this season. And I've enjoyed the evolution of this character, and what the island has done to him.
CC: What's really interesting is when we did the, um.. right back at the beginning of the show they did all this testing, and Sawyer's character tested almost at the bottom of the likability scale among every audience...
JH: Nice.
EL: [laughing]
CC: It was like, they rated all the characters from like, who do you like the most? And uh, you know, obviously characters like Jack were at the top, because Jack was sort of the hero from the get-go of the show.
JH: Right.
CC: Then, you know, they do it a couple of years later, and now Sawyer's right up at the very top, you know...
EL: Mm-hm.
CC: And it's really interesting to see how you can completely change the audience's perception of a character as you get to know him, and obviously all the things that have happened to Sawyer and all the things that actually, you know... Getting tossed down,and beat up, and getting put through all these things, and also seeing all the personal angst and the issues that kind of led him to be the guy he is. The audience then all of a sudden finds that incredibly relatable and is really drawn to this guy, and has completely fallen in love with this guy.
JH: Sure. And you guys are brilliant the way you're able to play that line, because that's the reality. If you're gonna be this smart-ass, you gotta take it. You gotta be able to take a beating.
EL: Yeah.
JH: [laughs] And that's what's so fun about him, because he's gonna say all those things, he's gonna do this self-centered type behavior, and every man for himself kinda thing. But he's gonna take the beating for it, and that is why I feel like people can relate, because we all have that side of us that want to be the Sawyer.
[Kate pushes Sawyer and demands to know why he didn't tell her about the other island]
CC: And there's moments like this, where he's basically saying take care of yourself, you know, get out of here.
JH: Right.
CC: And it's just so wonderful the way Sawyer kind of embodies these... he can be selfish and selfless, you know, moment to moment. And he has the potential to be so good in his heart, but then there's this self-loathing that causes him to be self-destructive also, and those two things are sort of co-existing in this guy.
JH: Yeah, and that is his.. the evolution of his character. Because those things don't work anymore on this island. That's what he's being faced with throughout, is his own humanity, and he can't... doesn't know how to deal with that, so he'll lash out in the only way he does know, and the way that he has learned to survive in society. But we're not in society. [laughs] We're on the island. So he's faced with that constantly, which I love. Because he doesn't know what to do with it, from moment to moment.
[Music swells as Sawyer swirls Kate against the bars]
EL: You know, I was gonna say that that was one of the things we were just discussing the other day, that everyone has to find their place and who they are on the island, because who they were in their previous life doesn't work here. It just.. you are no longer that person. And that's one of the things about this show that was what we wanted to explore, was how freeing it could be to be released from the person you were expected to be, and be able to start clean, and be whoever you want to be. And then the reality of... there's something inside of you that is an essence that you can't deny, so that's gonna come through, no matter what you do, no matter where you are, no matter who you try to be, you will be you.
[Sawyer takes Kate's shirt off]
JH: You're naked.
CC: [laughs]
EL: Shut up. [laughing]
CC: This is such a big moment, obviously, in the show, for these characters to finally culminate their relationship. And, um, it was funny, that last scene, I was telling Evangeline it was the one and only time that the person who covers Standards and Practices from the show came over to the editing room, and we had to sit there and like, go frame by frame, just to make sure there wasn't too much being revealed there, you know...
JH: Right.
CC: We live in cautious times, you know, and uh...
JH: That was very important to us, as actors as well, and as characters. Because it had been so long, the payoff needed to be something special, so we talked before, Evi and I, and decided to really take our time, and really take moments in there and hope that that came across differently. And I feel like it did.
CC: It was great. I mean you think about it, you know, in a show, in a television show, to basically go fifty-five hours before these two characters...
EL: Mm. It's beautiful.
CC: ... who are in love with each other actually finally culminate and, you know, make love. And I think it's really amazing, and I think it was all the better for that. And I think just as a starting point to that relationship, and you know, really kind of deepening and existing on a different level, it was really a great scene. And then you know, we kind of now see that in contrast with Kate and this other man who she loved, but obviously is kind of very torn because she's keeping this deep secret.
[scene changes to post-coital cuddling]
EL: My favorite thing in...
CC: This was my favorite scene to rehearse with Josh, by the way.
[laughter]
JH: You are an incredible snuggler, I tell you...
CC: I don't know why we had to do it like three times, but it's all the better for it.
JH: You're like a snuggle bear, I can't help myself.
EL: [laughing]
EL: I was actually surprised, and really pleased with the writing when I read that there was this sort of post-coital scene, because I felt like for it to be really clear that Kate and Sawyer didn't just have a weak moment of lust where they gave in to their desires, but that they actually had realized, physically realized, something that was inside of them emotionally. I thought this scene provided that, and it proved that, and it supported what we were trying to show in, you know, the previous cage scene. It was really nice to read it and to feel like they were honoring that, they were honoring the emotion.
CC: Yeah, and just having Sawyer say 'I love you too' to Kate was such a huge moment for us on a writing level, because just that acknowledgement from him was such a hard thing for that character to get to that place.
JH: Yeah, that was tricky, too, to play, because it so... can not be melodramatic, and it's a fine line, how to bring that out.
CC: And the way he sort of tosses it off but, you know, committing to it without having to you know... but doing it obliquely, which is great.
JH: Yeah, she's not looking at me... [laughs]
CC: Yeah.
JH: So I can just kind of do it, and see how it fits. See how it lands.
CC: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. He's trying it on.
JH: Did it land, or not?
CC: Exactly.
EL: You know, again in contrast to the flashbacks, where she's got this man who is doing the exact opposite. He's, you know, really really heartfelt and intense and intimate about the way he will look her in the eye and say, 'I love you Monica.' And it's just really sort of what you imagine the traditional idea of falling in love with someone being like. And then here on the island she's got, you know, a guy who's kind of throwing it out there flippantly while she's not even looking at him, and it seems to mean so much more.
CC: Yeah. That's cool.
[scene of Jack in the monitor room]
CC: And of course this is the scene where Jack ends up seeing them on the monitor and realizes what's going on.
EL: And I thought he played this so perfectly, because it was such a difficult thing that if he had overdone it, if he had overplayed his hurt or his anger or his reaction to seeing it all... I don't think it would have felt as horrific, like... I just think the way it's so simple, and it's so quiet, and it's within him, that you just see him be wounded, that your heart just breaks for him, rather than you feeling like, 'Oh come on, get over it, obviously that was gonna happen.' You feel like, 'Oh God, no, no... that poor guy.'
CC: Yeah. And this moment ends up kind of informing his motivation towards Kate for the whole rest of the season. I mean it really is a huge kind of pivotal moment that takes us right to the end. [pause] Oh, and Michael Emerson... You know, he is... it's hard to kind of imagine the show without Ben at this point, just as an adversary, he's like...
JH: Yeah! He's phenomenal.
CC: ...he's so juicy.
JH: He is juicy... good word for him.
CC: He's so good, he's just like, oh my God, you know? He can sort of deliver it all without it being like, you know, twirling mustache cliche. But he just kind of gives everything his own little spin that's just...
JH: He's such a classy guy, too. Such a nice guy.
EL: Very kind. He's so warmhearted, and so genuine and such a gentle man and kind in real life, that it's amazing he plays such a good villain.
CC: Yeah. Well, 'cause he kind of has this, you know, humanity. And obviously in this story, the fact that he is himself suffering from a tumor, and doesn't know why, and we'll come to learn later in the season that he's not supposed to have cancer. People on this island don't really get sick...
EL: Mm-hm.
CC: You know, to see a guy who is a villain, but is also kind of like everybody else on the island, struggling with his own issues...
EL: Yeah.
CC: ...I think kind of dimensionalizes him in a way that makes him much more interesting.
[scene of Kate and Sawyer asleep in spooning formation]
CC: All right.
JH: Ohhhh... Who could this be?
CC: Ohh... look at that.
[flashback of Kate taking pregnancy test]
CC: And this is kind of the big moment, obviously, in the story where she realizes as a character that, you know... this is kind of the catalyzing event where she realizes she can't stay with this guy.
EL: Yeah.
CC: I mean, when she realizes that she's not... She's so fearful that she could be pregnant with his child, and she realizes this is where she's got to basically now cut and run again.
EL: Yeah.
CC: And, you know, it becomes that sort of complete manifestation of her committment. [pause] So she makes him one of her famous iced tea cocktails.. [laughing]
EL: Elixir... [laughing] Physically we tried...
CC: And you know, she serves these at parties too... they're fantastic.
EL: [laughing] Yes.
JH: I tell ya... ! It's volatile. Boom, boom.
CC: Everybody's down on the floor...
EL: [still laughing]
CC: Don't go to a party at Evi's house, that's all I'll say.
EL: And in this scene we tried, physically... myself and the hair and makeup team and the wardrobe team, we all had sort of said 'Let's try to make it so that you actually physically watch Kate unravel, kind of fall apart in this scene.' So that she sort of starts it really put-together because she's still playing that role, and by the end, she's just a mess, like she is the convict on the run again. And you see that other person come out in her, before she walks out the door.
CC: Yeah. That was one of my favorite lines in the script.. 'Taco night? I don't do taco night.'
EL: Yeah. [laughing]
CC: It's like the perfect summation of Kate sort of reverting back to who she is as a character.
JH: Right. I don't do taco night.
CC: Exactly.
EL: I make fun of people who do taco night.
CC: And that's pretty much it. Party's over for her.
[Kevin stumbles under influence of drugged tea]
JH: Spanish fly, watch out! [makes sound effect]
EL: [laughing]
JH: It's on now. She got him where she wants him.
[Kevin falls]
JH: Ooop, there he goes.
[Kate cries and puts her necklace in Kevin's hand]
CC: Just another really great scene, though. Really great, you know, emotional moment for Kate here. And you know, obviously this is all sort of building to... now we're heading into the end run of this episode, which is the end of our little mini-pod here, with Jack doing the surgery, and uh, basically doing it so that Kate and Sawyer can get liberated here. [pause] I never did get an answer to my question, though, truly, Josh. What is your process like, what do you do to prep when you get a script? Do you... what do you do?
JH: Um... well, what I'll do is first, once I get the script back from my wife, who takes it from me and locks herself in the bathroom 'til she's finished... What I'll do is I like to take probably at least fifteen, twenty minutes to just sit and think about it. I'll grab a script, I'll read like the first stage direction or set-up, and then put it down.
CC: Mm-hm.
JH: And then just wait fifteen minutes of thinking about what it could be, which for me creates a space for it.
EL: Hmm.
JH: And then I sit down and read it, and I get a better, cleaner first impression then. And then, like Evi was saying, that's huge... I read it as an audience first, to get a first impression, to see what happens to my emotions with it.
CC: Right.
JH: And then... I love the fact that we don't have a lot of time to prepare, Carlton.
[laughter]
EL: [sing-song voice] We love you...
JH: I love the fact that we don't have a lot of time to prepare, because now we know these characters, and it is more real to life, we are more spontaenous, and are able to do that with these characters because we know them so well. I can do it the same day - you give me the material, I run it through Sawyer, now I know the door to get there.
CC: Well, good. That's kind of liberating for Season 4, isn't it, really?
[laughter]
JH: No, I said I could if I had to.
EL: [laughing] Thanks, Josh.
JH: Oh my God, what have I done now?
CC: It's pretty funny, we're recording this commentary during the shooting of the finale, and it was about as behind as we've ever been. I mean, we literally had shot a couple of scenes before we ever published the script of this thing, because just the production realities... And, you know, Damon and I wrote the finale in, like, nine days. It was like writing a two-hour movie.
JH: Wow.
CC: And literally the first part we had to actually send down like the first four days of scenes, and Jack Bender, who's directing it, sort of said, 'These are the ones I'm gonna shoot first.' And we sent those down in sort of a lump to him while we were still writing the rest of the script, so they had something to prepare.
EL: Right.
CC: But it was about as behind as we've been, and yet, somehow it's all kind of working out.
JH: You've trained us well. Now we can do it.
EL: [laughing]
CC: It is a benefit, that you guys are so ingrained in the characters now.
JH: And yet it allows for growth in the characters, because we're not pre-set in our emotions and what's gonna happen. We haven't really got a plan. So it's nice when the characters do change and they are evolving, it allows us to allow that. Because a lot of times an actor will get in their own way of, you know, having an idea about something and hard to break the mold of that. And in this situation, we're not allowed that, which is nice. It works for me, anyway. I enjoy it.
EL: Filming the finale, which we're doing right now, um, there's a lot of group scenes where the entire original cast was back together again, and Daniel made the observation that the environment now is so different than what it used to be when, say, in Season 1 when we were filming these group scenes. Because in Season 1 we were all very reverent and very serious and we committed and the scene, you know, was something that we took very seriously. Now, we're all goofing off and joking around and having fun, and he said part of that is just because we now know our characters so well, we know the island so well, we can do it with our eyes closed. You know, we just.. it's become something that's second nature to us. Our characters are like an extension of ourselves now. And so we don't need to be as intense about preparing and thinking about how we're gonna prepare a scene, and actually playing it. We can just do it, it just comes out of us.
CC: Yeah. [pause] Tucker Gates, who directed this episode, is one of our visiting directors... and you know, Tucker's very busy with a lot of other things, so he's not available to do a ton of episodes, but he's really an excellent director. And it was actually Tucker's idea to do this last scene in the rain, which, you know, was one of those things where we go, 'Oh, we really should have thought of that ourselves.' But it was really an element that I think, you know, just added enormously to the intensity of the scene.
EL: Mm.
CC: And rain is really very metaphorically significant in our show. I mean, when rain shows up, bad things tend to happen.
JH: Mm-hm.
EL: Yeah.
JH: I remember this scene, and I was so tired at this point of being beaten down. I fought with Tucker, because I really felt like he needed to not just lay down and walk out of the cage and take it. So we made that scene more dramatic... the fight not to die more significant. And it came out of that emotion of constantly being in that, and being beaten down and not doing anything about it. So I really dig Tucker for having to put up with my emotion there and helping us find a way through it that made sense.
EL: Yeah. Well, I think Kate and Sawyer are both fighters. You know, neither of them...
JH: That was it. It just didn't make sense that they would just lay down.
EL: Mm-hm.
JH: So we had to really amp that a bit.
EL: And I think they also both for the first time, maybe in their lives, have something worth fighting for.
JH: Right.
EL: And that's what kind of breaks my heart in this scene, is that I think Kate displays some of the girliest qualities you ever see her display, in this scene. She's kind of weak and whimpery about the whole thing, but I.. for me, where that came from was that 'I just for the first time, maybe ever, finally connected to someone, and feel like I have something here, and something worth fighting for and worth living for, and now you're gonna take it away.' And I feel like Sawyer is, again, in the same situation, where this is the first time, maybe ever in his life, where he's found someone who he can love. And now he's about to be killed.
CC: And by the way, you know no one seems to learn the lesson, if you have sex on the island.. it's just not a good thing to have sex on this show.
[laughter]
CC: It pretty much leads to bad results.
JH: You know what? I'll take the good with the bad.
[Kate talking to Jack via walkie-talkie]
CC: So here's the big, you know... all this leads up to the big, kind of cliffhanger moment, which the audience had to live with for four months. And you know, I think we kind of learned in hindsight that the show works better when you run all the episodes together. You can have one cliffhanger at the end of the year...
JH: Right.
CC: I mean, this was good, I think this was really good, but you know, it was painful for the audience to have to wait four months to see this finally get paid off.
EL: Well, I think that it was the only thing that bugged me about that, was that when we came back, they were airing previews for it a long time before we came back, and in the previews they showed Kate and Sawyer running in the jungle. So you knew they got away. They gave away that payoff!
["Kate, damn it, run!"]
CC: Well, there it is. Well all I can say is, I think I've learned something today.
EL: [laughs]
JH: I've definitely learned something. I'm not very good at commentary in the morning.
EL: I've learned about Carlton's process of seeing his writing through and performing it out with the actors. I didn't realize you guys had rehearsed those sex scenes together. That was good information.
CC: There has to be a carrot to go with the stick.
JH: Now you understand why they're so tight.
EL: [laughs]
JH: Yeahhh...
CC: Well, thank you guys, and we'll talk to you again sometime soon.
EL: Thank you.
JH: We enjoyed it!
CC: Bye.
JH: Bye.
CC: Hi, this is Carlton Cuse.
JH: And this is Josh Holloway. Good morning.
CC: And we're here to talk about Episode 3 of 6, of Lost... give you a little insight into what went into making this episode, or lack of insight into what went into making this episode.
EL: [laughs]
CC: And, uh, here we go.
[flashback scene of Kate walking down hotel hallway]
JH: Wow.
CC: Who's this mysterious person?
JH: I don't know. But the music's kinda flirty.
CC: [laughs] Oh, could that be...
[shot of Kate's gift bag]
JH: A gift for me?
CC: ... Kate Austen? She's... [Kate turns and we see her face] Oh, there we go!
JH: Oh, goodness.
CC: So obviously this is a Kate flashback episode.
EL: Obviously. In the, uh, in the scene coming up, in the moment coming up where I run out the door, and jump on the cop? Um, there was actually one scene where I was so vigorous with my jumping that I accidentally [laughing] knocked him into the wall behind him, and he almost fell over.
CC: [laughs] Nathan Fillion is the,uh... you'll see him in a minute here. Well-known from Joss Whedon's Firefly, and uh...
EL: He was great to work with. He was so much fun, and so professional, he was such a gentleman. He was sort of the character in so many ways, because he was that guy that instantly you felt you could trust. You know, he was just really a good man.
[shot of Kate talking to Kevin through door]
JH: Look at you, you look like a little 1950s airline stewardess... I love it.. what you've got goin' on there.
EL: [laughing]
JH: Right? Betty Crocker, watch out.
EL: See, this is what I...
[Kate leaps on Kevin, everyone yells "Ohhh!"]
JH: Oh, it's a tree frog! Oh my goodness.
[Everyone laughing]
CC: Man, can you slam dunk? Look at your elevation there.
EL: That was the moment, where I threw him against the wall in one of the takes.
JH: You are spry...
[scene of Kate waking up to Sawyer throwing rocks in the cages]
CC: So, we sort of, Damon and I wrote this episode as a little mini season finale. When we originally aired these episodes, obviously the first six were aired in one block in the fall, the idea being that the other sixteen episodes of the show were gonna air in the spring, and we knew that this was gonna be the last episode of the first block, so we tried to really kind of create a cliffhanger. And this is also really the episode that kind of brought to an end this whole story of our guys in captivity, and although there's still a little bit of it that carries over into the next episodes, this is really the episode that we viewed as the kind of climax to that story, where finally, we were gonna resolve, you know, what was happening to Kate and Sawyer here in captivity.
[scene changes from Kate/Sawyer to Jack/Juliet/Ben inside Hydra]
JH: Carlton, could you please not talk while I'm on screen?
EL: [laughs]
JH: Thank you, thank you. No...
EL: I think one of the coolest things about this whole storyline that happened in the cages was that, um, I really adored... and I've been trying to work it out for awhile, because the cages were a really unique acting experience for me and what I realized after awhile, was that we, you know, Josh and I, were playing scenes that were more intimate than anything that we'd ever done on the show before, and yet we had to play them from a physical proximity that was so far away, so we were projecting intimacy across a yard, rather than...
JH: Yeah, that was interesting. We had to find a way to figure out that puzzle.
EL: Yeah. And I think that made it really intense, you know, as actors and hopefully on screen... because instead of the intimacy being played with a physical touch, or with, you know, physical intimacy, getting close to each other.... it all had to be in our voices, our eyes, you know, sending messages.
JH: And at the same time you had to watch out for the trap of being in the same shot every time, pinned against the bars looking at each other.
EL: [laughing] Yeah!
JH: So you had to work around the same, uh... where you're drawn to is to the bars to see each other, so you had to work around that, to add some dimension, which was pretty interesting.
EL: Yeah.
CC: What was interesting was that I'd never had an experience before where an actor like Josh would call me up and say 'I want to rehearse these intimate moments with Kate with you', and um..
JH: [talking over him] And a video camera, if you could, uh..
EH: [laughs]
CC: ...as a writer it was very flattering.
[JH and EL both laughing]
CC: And yet, strangely, you know... it was very... it was very...
JH: Just because I wanted to switch out, so Kate could watch what I do while I kissed you, doesn't mean, you know, anything, Carlton. I'm a strict professional.
EL: And I love the stuff inside as well, where you know, again there's that physical barrier, not a yard between them, but there's that glass between them, where they're always playing these scenes that are so intense that if they could touch, there would be this instant explosion, but they can't. So, there's a certain, again, there's something that's being held back, and yet thrown forward with more fervor because they have to get it through that glass without being able to actually, physically break that boundary.
CC: Right.
[scene of Kate and Kevin in bed together]
CC: I mean, thematically what we were trying to explore here was this notion of, you know, Kate's ability to commit, and you know, we've established her as a character who likes to run, and it's not just literally running as a fugitive, but also sort of running from difficult emotional situations. And we sort of see in her flashback the story of her marriage, which we had mentioned in a previous episode, and sort of hinted that she had briefly been married, and we thought, okay, now let's tell the story of that time in which she actually did finally get married. And we see her kind of getting close with this guy, and, you know, in love with this guy, but there's just something in her DNA as a character that will not allow to, you know, kind of stay with him. And obviously circumstances are also very difficult, because here she is, a fugitive, married to a cop, and you know, that's not gonna have a good ending.
[JH and EL laugh]
JH: Always ends in blood and tears.
CC: In the meantime, the parallel on the island is, she and, you know, you have Kate and Sawyer, who are these two characters who are obviously really, there's this incredible thing happening between them, and yet both of them I think are afraid of, you know, this sort of intimacy and kind of connection, and they're drawn to and also sort of afraid of the feelings that they have between each other at the same time.
EL: And I love the contrast between the two stories because every element of them is completely opposite to the other. So when Kate is with her husband in the flashbacks, she wants it so badly, and yet she knows she can't have it. And yet with Sawyer, she so desperately doesn't want to go there, and doesn't want that thing to happen, but she can't seem to stop it from happening, because there's this momentum and this chemistry between them that she can't really help. And, you know, where she's relatively free in the flashbacks to make it happen, she's not in a cage, and she's not being forced to do labor every day, it's actually more difficult for her to stay in that house, and you know, cook breakfast, and be a little housewife, than it is for her to break rocks and work in a quarry and sleep in a cage. And there's all these contrasts that happened that I just love, because I think the island represents who she truly is in her heart, and the flashback represents who she wishes she was.
CC: Right. That's cool. So what is your process like, Evi, when you get a script like this? How much work do you do in preparation, do you do it like the night before? What's your sort of methodology?
EL: My methodology is to read the script for the first time as an audience member, so I just read it sheerly for the entertainment. I try to remove myself from the character and pretend like I don't have to play those scenes, and just react to them emotionally and see how they make me feel, so that I know what I want to project to the audience... I know what I want to make them feel. And then I go back and I re-read it as the character, and I actually try the scenes on while I'm reading them and I try reading them out loud and seeing how they feel emotionally. And, um, if there's anything that I come up against that feels like a wall, then I will explore that, but if there's anything that feels really natural and it just seems to flow, I will try very hard to then tuck that away, and pretend like I've never read it, because I know on the day, it's going to instinctively come out the way it most purely should. But if I come up against a wall in the script, then I'll work through the scene and I'll try it on a few different ways until it seems to fit, and I'll write down a note, as to like how it fit, and why it fit, and where I found the motivation. And then at that point I put the script away and I wait until I get to set. I don't memorize lines until I get to set, so that when they come out it feels spontaneous the way it does in real life. It feels like I'm trying to come up with the words as I'm saying them, as human beings do in everyday conversation.
JH: And I just grab it and go, 'cause I'm just that frickin' good, you know what I mean?
EL: [laughing]
JH: It's tough.. it's real tough.
[scene of Kate and Sawyer breaking rocks]
EL: This scene! Remember this scene, where I decided to be Paul Bunyan?
JH: Oh, yeah. [laughing]
EL:.. and I burnt a hole in my shoulder carrying burning hot logs?
JH: Nice one.
CC: Oh really? What happened?
EL: I still have a scar from it. Those logs that I threw in the fire at the beginning of the scene, I would carry them back and forth every take. And I'd throw them in the fire and then take them out and put 'em back on my shoulder, and then throw them in the fire, and take them out and put 'em back on my shoulder...
CC: Oh my God. [laughing]
[Alex shoots guard with slingshot]
JH: Nice one.. Oh!
CC: Ohh.. got him with a rock.
[Alex argues with Pickett while Kate and Sawyer are on the ground]
EL: I love how dirty we get in these quarries.
CC: Yeah.
JH: And what's so funny is that we're three times that dirty...
EL: Three times that dirty!
JH: It doesn't even read. We have to put so much on, I'd come home and Yessi's like, 'Where'd you come from, a coal mine?'
EL: [laughing] Yep.
[few seconds of silence as they watch Alex fight with Pickett]
EL: [affectionately] Scrawn. She's so great.
JH: Scrawn. That's her nickname. Little Scrawn.
CC: Who?
EL: Tania.
[shot of Kate laying on the ground]
JH: And that nickname there is Clevie, I believe, right?
EL: Ohh... you had to.
JH: Whoops.
[laughter]
JH: Whoops, had to do that.
EL: Hey, I didn't choose the outfits.
JH: Oh, goodness.
CC: We had a... another scene in the storyline which did not make the show which was the scene where we actually explain what they were doing out there, which was building a runway.
JH: Right.
EL: Yes.
CC: ..and, so that sort of was one those little... you can kind of hear about it online, because we showed a clip of it in a..
JH: There was an explanation, wasn't there?
CC: Yep.
EL: Yeah.
JH: Because I just said it again in a previous episode, I mean one just recently, and I was like, Didn't I say that before? But it was never used.
CC: That's right, it was never used.
EL: That happens often on the show, where we'll film a scene, and then it'll be cut out, and then a few episodes later, we're given the same lines, and you think, No, I said that already.. I did that already! And you're like, oh yeah, we never used it.
CC: Yeah, well there was particularly the, uh...
[scene of Juliet and Kate talking to each other intensely]
JH: Kiss her. Kiss her...
CC: [laughing]
EL: [laughing] Jeez.
CC: ..the um, the whole thing where you and Alex basically, uh, she says where'd you get that dress?
EL: Yeah.
CC: And she says it looks good on you, it's mine...
EL: Yes... Yes!
CC: We did that like four times and kept cutting it out...
EL: [laughing] I know, I know.
CC: I thnk you must have been like, What is going on here, what are these guys...? But it was like, it was a gag we really wanted to do, but we kept cutting it out of the show and cutting it out of the show, so we'd write it into the next episode, and then the next episode.
[Juliet asks Kate to put the bag over her head]
EL: That line.. "You think I'm gonna put it over my head just because you said please?"
CC: Yeah.
EL: I could not get that line out for the life of me. It was, like, twenty takes of me bursting out laughing because I couldn't say it right, and then Elizabeth says, "No, I want you to put a hood over your head..." and again she started stumbling over "hood over your head," and we both ended up having to loop the line.
JH: It's 'cause it's really a man's line.
[laughter]
JH: You should put the hood over your head, darling.
EL: Hood over your head. Say that six times fast.
JH: [laughing]
[Kate trying on her wedding dress]
CC: We loved the transition of going from the hood over Kate's head to her in her veil.
JH: Nice.
CC: And the original idea was actually was she was gonna actually lift up her veil and look at each other, but that wasn't sort of the setup...
JH: You look so different!
EL: [laughing] Oh, and that dress became an issue. And my little sister watched this episode with me when I was ADRing it, she was in the stage with me. And she just kept going, 'You look ridiculous. Who is that? You look ridiculous!' Because she could barely recognize me.
CC: Nah, you look beautiful.
JH: It's great, though, that you can look so different.
EL: This dress was a nightmare. I had to go into a rental shop in Hawaii and look for a dress, and we couldn't find anything. Eventually we ended up bringing this one in from England, from a designer who said he'd like to make it for the show. And then the morning of.. the morning we shot this scene, I was in my trailer, and they were literally cutting off pieces of the dress, and sewing it in, and sewing it onto my body, because it needed to be altered, but we had twenty minutes to alter it before we started shooting.
CC: The problem is, basically, everything we do in an episode, we're not really that far ahead of the show in terms of writing these episodes, and so we'll finish a script five or six days, you know, business days, ahead of when it actually films. So then it gets sent to Hawaii and the actors read it. The actors really are kind of at the same... they don't know what's coming up either, they get the script and then read and study it, and I think it really makes the show great, because it makes it very present. You know, the actors are sort of acting in that moment. They don't know necessarily what's happened in their pasts that hasn't been told yet, or what's going on in the future. I mean, I think that's a good thing, don't you?
JH: I love it.
EL: It works both ways, you know. Sometimes it can be a hindrance. There are times when you're like, 'Oookay, well if I had known I did that, I would have played this scene really differently.' But then most of the time, I think what it does is it gives you that true to life experience of, you know, not always referring to everything that's happened in your past, or knowing what's gonna happen in your future.
CC: Yeah, I really think it makes the show feel like that, you know, everybody is in that same moment, the same moment that the audience is in, just experiencing the story as it's being told.
EL: Yeah.
[Juliet takes the bag off Kate's head in the hydra station]
CC: And, uh, this is the first scene in six episodes where Kate and Jack have seen each other, and this was a really big moment for us, just because we'd been telling this story, and it was so segmented. I mean, Jack and Kate and Sawyer were all in this Hydra Station that the Others have constructed on this little Alcatraz island, but Kate and Jack, this is the first moment in these first six hours that they actually see each other, when, you know, Kate discovers that Jack is actually here and that he's okay. And obviously there's a developing romantic triangle... there's actually a quadrangle.
EL: Quadrangle. [laughs] There's definitely a quadrangle.
CC: Because, you know, you have Josh, you have Sawyer on the other side of it. And just the symbolism of them sort of stuck between this glass here was also kind of an interesting part of the thematic storyline, because again there are all these walls and barriers that exist between Kate and the men in her life.
EL: Yeah. And they're all very invisible, which I love about the glass scene. The cages are a clear barrier, but the glass is invisible, and it distorts things and gives you an implied sense of intimacy that isn't actually there. And I think that is totally the story of Kate's life with anyone she ever tries to get close to, even including her mother, which is so tragic - that she doesn't seem to ever really be able to connect or be one with other human beings. And I think that she's a really tortured soul because of that.
CC: Right. And I think that some of those things are maybe at the core of why all these characters are on the island in the first place.
EL: The island seems to represent that missing link, um... All of these people have issues with intimacy, have issues with their own redemption, with their own love for themselves, and it's like the island is that barrier now. The island has literally sequestered them from the rest of the world and the rest of humanity.
[Kate sobs to Jack that they're going to kill Sawyer]
JH: I'm sorry, I was just watching.
[laughter]
JH: This commentary thing's tough. I'm just sittin' here, checkin' it out.
CC: Did you ever see this episode Josh?
JH: I did. Yeah, I've seen.. It's wonderful. Actually, I'm crying right now. [whimpers] Stop it, Kate. You're s'posed to love me.
EL: [cracks up]
CC: But she does, Josh.
JH: It's awesome.
EL: That's been something actually that I've done a lot of searching to play, the triangle. Because there's the cliche of the triangle, but then there's the sort of reality of the fact that this woman actually loves two different men. It's not just that she decides to cheat on one, or that she lusts after one and loves the other. I really believe she loves both of these men for different reasons. And I've really done a lot of searching to find how to play those two things without them being the same.
CC: Yeah.
EL: Because you can't play your love for one person the same way you play your love for another person.
JH: And it's interesting because we're kind of two halves of the same type of person, which makes us, Jack and I, naturally connected.
EL: Hmm.
JH: It's a love-hate thing, we can't help but be intrigued by the other one, because we're the opposite ends of the spectrum.
EL: Yeah.
JH: And our core, I believe, is probably the same.
CC: Yeah, I think, because there are sort of, you know, good and bad qualities in both guys, and each guy is sort of capable of heroism, and you know, has his failings, and you know... Obviously it's really interesting because there's a real split in the fanbase between the Skaters and the Jaters.
[laughter]
CC: It is a raging debate, who Kate should end up with.
EL: And I really think that what Josh just said about them being two halves of the same whole is why she's so torn. Because really, ultimately, what she needs is..
CC: Both of them.
EL :.. a completely different man who incorporates both of them, instead of one or the other. [laughing]
JH: Hey, man...
CC: I thought you were gonna say she needs both of them together.
EL: [laughing]
JH: It's like, the new millennium, can't she have both? She's spry, she's energetic...
CC: She can move to Utah.
JH: She can move to Utah, exactly.
EL: [still laughing]
JH: Not a problem.
[Kate on the pay phone with the marshal]
EL: Now, Fred, who is the guy who plays the marshal, is the first actor that I ever acted with, in my entire career. I mean, my first scene on Lost was my first scene as an actress, and it was on the plane doing the crash, and Fred was who I was acting opposite. And I thought at that time, because he gets hit by the suitcase and dies pretty much in the pilot...
CC: [laughing] You would never see him again.
EL: [laughing] I would never see him again!
CC: And yet, twenty episodes later, it's like...
JH: Right. Freddy's back.
CC: Oh my God. The one thing about this show is you actually work more if you're dead.
EL: Yeah!
JH: That is true.
CC: It's like axiomatic, if your character's killed, you're more likely to show up. And, uh, yeah, so the marshal character was originally killed in the pilot, and you know, Damon and JJ thought he should...
JH: No, he was killed in the one right after where I shot him and missed.
EL: [laughing] Yeah.
CC: Well, no but the original idea was he was just gonna die in the pilot...
JH: Right.
CC: But then, it was just like, well let's keep him alive for episode one, and then he ends up dying in the first episode, and now all of a sudden in flashbacks... We've seen all these actors...
JH: Which is incredible, by the way. Let's just get to Sawyer's aim, you know...
EL: [laughs]
CC: Yeah.
JH: During the pilot, he takes out a polar bear at a full run, with a nine millimeter.
CC: After about nine shots.
JH: And after that? But after that, he can't even get his gun out, he can't hit anything, he can't hit a guy not movin'...
CC: Well that was why, literally, it was because of that...
JH: [laughing]
CC: We were sitting there, and I was like, he's gotta have, he's myopic. That's gotta be the problem, he doesn't have... he can't see.
JH: Ohhh...
CC: So that was how the idea came up to have Sawyer have glasses.
EL: Ohhh!
JH: Interesting!
EL: But he could see a big white ball of fur, because that... he would be able. You could see that..
CC: You could see that. How many shots did it take him to kill that damn polar bear?
EL: Absolutely. That's interesting.
CC: So, you know, eventually you'll... you know..
JH: Get lucky.
CC: Exactly. You get lucky eventually.
JH: And I love that, though. I love the fact that he starts out and people are like, wow, he's a good shot and everything. And then from like then on, everytime he reaches for his gun, he gets shot or he gets hit by a girl or he gets whacked by a stick or...
EL: [laughing]
JH: He never gets his arm around. He's like the slowest draw in town.
CC: Yeah. You know, I will say that Josh was awesome. He suffered an enormous amount of abuse in these first six episodes out here in this cage...
EL: Ohhh my goodness. And not just that, but like the whole show, I just finally reached a point where I would find myself on set feeling the sister, running up beside him going like 'You can't throw him on the ground again!' Not Kate, but Evi. 'You can't do...! You need to really work that scene so he's not being thrown on the ground again, 'cause he's just destoyed, physically!'
JH: Yeah, that was... I love physical scenes, and I'm a physical actor, so I enjoy that, but after awhile, playing also the mental side of that, it gets rough after awhile.. that sort of beat down.. you feel it, and take it home with you.
EL: Yeah.
JH: And I'm like, Baby, give me a hug when I get home.
CC: Well, Sawyer has really gone through a lot of, you know, a real evolution over the course of this year.
JH: Yeah.
CC: From being sort of victimized at the beginning, and then coming back, and kind of getting strong, and then some also fun stuff with Sawyer, and then there's this very sort of dark turn at the end of the season.
JH: Absolutely. It's been quite a wonderful journey this season. And I've enjoyed the evolution of this character, and what the island has done to him.
CC: What's really interesting is when we did the, um.. right back at the beginning of the show they did all this testing, and Sawyer's character tested almost at the bottom of the likability scale among every audience...
JH: Nice.
EL: [laughing]
CC: It was like, they rated all the characters from like, who do you like the most? And uh, you know, obviously characters like Jack were at the top, because Jack was sort of the hero from the get-go of the show.
JH: Right.
CC: Then, you know, they do it a couple of years later, and now Sawyer's right up at the very top, you know...
EL: Mm-hm.
CC: And it's really interesting to see how you can completely change the audience's perception of a character as you get to know him, and obviously all the things that have happened to Sawyer and all the things that actually, you know... Getting tossed down,and beat up, and getting put through all these things, and also seeing all the personal angst and the issues that kind of led him to be the guy he is. The audience then all of a sudden finds that incredibly relatable and is really drawn to this guy, and has completely fallen in love with this guy.
JH: Sure. And you guys are brilliant the way you're able to play that line, because that's the reality. If you're gonna be this smart-ass, you gotta take it. You gotta be able to take a beating.
EL: Yeah.
JH: [laughs] And that's what's so fun about him, because he's gonna say all those things, he's gonna do this self-centered type behavior, and every man for himself kinda thing. But he's gonna take the beating for it, and that is why I feel like people can relate, because we all have that side of us that want to be the Sawyer.
[Kate pushes Sawyer and demands to know why he didn't tell her about the other island]
CC: And there's moments like this, where he's basically saying take care of yourself, you know, get out of here.
JH: Right.
CC: And it's just so wonderful the way Sawyer kind of embodies these... he can be selfish and selfless, you know, moment to moment. And he has the potential to be so good in his heart, but then there's this self-loathing that causes him to be self-destructive also, and those two things are sort of co-existing in this guy.
JH: Yeah, and that is his.. the evolution of his character. Because those things don't work anymore on this island. That's what he's being faced with throughout, is his own humanity, and he can't... doesn't know how to deal with that, so he'll lash out in the only way he does know, and the way that he has learned to survive in society. But we're not in society. [laughs] We're on the island. So he's faced with that constantly, which I love. Because he doesn't know what to do with it, from moment to moment.
[Music swells as Sawyer swirls Kate against the bars]
EL: You know, I was gonna say that that was one of the things we were just discussing the other day, that everyone has to find their place and who they are on the island, because who they were in their previous life doesn't work here. It just.. you are no longer that person. And that's one of the things about this show that was what we wanted to explore, was how freeing it could be to be released from the person you were expected to be, and be able to start clean, and be whoever you want to be. And then the reality of... there's something inside of you that is an essence that you can't deny, so that's gonna come through, no matter what you do, no matter where you are, no matter who you try to be, you will be you.
[Sawyer takes Kate's shirt off]
JH: You're naked.
CC: [laughs]
EL: Shut up. [laughing]
CC: This is such a big moment, obviously, in the show, for these characters to finally culminate their relationship. And, um, it was funny, that last scene, I was telling Evangeline it was the one and only time that the person who covers Standards and Practices from the show came over to the editing room, and we had to sit there and like, go frame by frame, just to make sure there wasn't too much being revealed there, you know...
JH: Right.
CC: We live in cautious times, you know, and uh...
JH: That was very important to us, as actors as well, and as characters. Because it had been so long, the payoff needed to be something special, so we talked before, Evi and I, and decided to really take our time, and really take moments in there and hope that that came across differently. And I feel like it did.
CC: It was great. I mean you think about it, you know, in a show, in a television show, to basically go fifty-five hours before these two characters...
EL: Mm. It's beautiful.
CC: ... who are in love with each other actually finally culminate and, you know, make love. And I think it's really amazing, and I think it was all the better for that. And I think just as a starting point to that relationship, and you know, really kind of deepening and existing on a different level, it was really a great scene. And then you know, we kind of now see that in contrast with Kate and this other man who she loved, but obviously is kind of very torn because she's keeping this deep secret.
[scene changes to post-coital cuddling]
EL: My favorite thing in...
CC: This was my favorite scene to rehearse with Josh, by the way.
[laughter]
JH: You are an incredible snuggler, I tell you...
CC: I don't know why we had to do it like three times, but it's all the better for it.
JH: You're like a snuggle bear, I can't help myself.
EL: [laughing]
EL: I was actually surprised, and really pleased with the writing when I read that there was this sort of post-coital scene, because I felt like for it to be really clear that Kate and Sawyer didn't just have a weak moment of lust where they gave in to their desires, but that they actually had realized, physically realized, something that was inside of them emotionally. I thought this scene provided that, and it proved that, and it supported what we were trying to show in, you know, the previous cage scene. It was really nice to read it and to feel like they were honoring that, they were honoring the emotion.
CC: Yeah, and just having Sawyer say 'I love you too' to Kate was such a huge moment for us on a writing level, because just that acknowledgement from him was such a hard thing for that character to get to that place.
JH: Yeah, that was tricky, too, to play, because it so... can not be melodramatic, and it's a fine line, how to bring that out.
CC: And the way he sort of tosses it off but, you know, committing to it without having to you know... but doing it obliquely, which is great.
JH: Yeah, she's not looking at me... [laughs]
CC: Yeah.
JH: So I can just kind of do it, and see how it fits. See how it lands.
CC: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. He's trying it on.
JH: Did it land, or not?
CC: Exactly.
EL: You know, again in contrast to the flashbacks, where she's got this man who is doing the exact opposite. He's, you know, really really heartfelt and intense and intimate about the way he will look her in the eye and say, 'I love you Monica.' And it's just really sort of what you imagine the traditional idea of falling in love with someone being like. And then here on the island she's got, you know, a guy who's kind of throwing it out there flippantly while she's not even looking at him, and it seems to mean so much more.
CC: Yeah. That's cool.
[scene of Jack in the monitor room]
CC: And of course this is the scene where Jack ends up seeing them on the monitor and realizes what's going on.
EL: And I thought he played this so perfectly, because it was such a difficult thing that if he had overdone it, if he had overplayed his hurt or his anger or his reaction to seeing it all... I don't think it would have felt as horrific, like... I just think the way it's so simple, and it's so quiet, and it's within him, that you just see him be wounded, that your heart just breaks for him, rather than you feeling like, 'Oh come on, get over it, obviously that was gonna happen.' You feel like, 'Oh God, no, no... that poor guy.'
CC: Yeah. And this moment ends up kind of informing his motivation towards Kate for the whole rest of the season. I mean it really is a huge kind of pivotal moment that takes us right to the end. [pause] Oh, and Michael Emerson... You know, he is... it's hard to kind of imagine the show without Ben at this point, just as an adversary, he's like...
JH: Yeah! He's phenomenal.
CC: ...he's so juicy.
JH: He is juicy... good word for him.
CC: He's so good, he's just like, oh my God, you know? He can sort of deliver it all without it being like, you know, twirling mustache cliche. But he just kind of gives everything his own little spin that's just...
JH: He's such a classy guy, too. Such a nice guy.
EL: Very kind. He's so warmhearted, and so genuine and such a gentle man and kind in real life, that it's amazing he plays such a good villain.
CC: Yeah. Well, 'cause he kind of has this, you know, humanity. And obviously in this story, the fact that he is himself suffering from a tumor, and doesn't know why, and we'll come to learn later in the season that he's not supposed to have cancer. People on this island don't really get sick...
EL: Mm-hm.
CC: You know, to see a guy who is a villain, but is also kind of like everybody else on the island, struggling with his own issues...
EL: Yeah.
CC: ...I think kind of dimensionalizes him in a way that makes him much more interesting.
[scene of Kate and Sawyer asleep in spooning formation]
CC: All right.
JH: Ohhhh... Who could this be?
CC: Ohh... look at that.
[flashback of Kate taking pregnancy test]
CC: And this is kind of the big moment, obviously, in the story where she realizes as a character that, you know... this is kind of the catalyzing event where she realizes she can't stay with this guy.
EL: Yeah.
CC: I mean, when she realizes that she's not... She's so fearful that she could be pregnant with his child, and she realizes this is where she's got to basically now cut and run again.
EL: Yeah.
CC: And, you know, it becomes that sort of complete manifestation of her committment. [pause] So she makes him one of her famous iced tea cocktails.. [laughing]
EL: Elixir... [laughing] Physically we tried...
CC: And you know, she serves these at parties too... they're fantastic.
EL: [laughing] Yes.
JH: I tell ya... ! It's volatile. Boom, boom.
CC: Everybody's down on the floor...
EL: [still laughing]
CC: Don't go to a party at Evi's house, that's all I'll say.
EL: And in this scene we tried, physically... myself and the hair and makeup team and the wardrobe team, we all had sort of said 'Let's try to make it so that you actually physically watch Kate unravel, kind of fall apart in this scene.' So that she sort of starts it really put-together because she's still playing that role, and by the end, she's just a mess, like she is the convict on the run again. And you see that other person come out in her, before she walks out the door.
CC: Yeah. That was one of my favorite lines in the script.. 'Taco night? I don't do taco night.'
EL: Yeah. [laughing]
CC: It's like the perfect summation of Kate sort of reverting back to who she is as a character.
JH: Right. I don't do taco night.
CC: Exactly.
EL: I make fun of people who do taco night.
CC: And that's pretty much it. Party's over for her.
[Kevin stumbles under influence of drugged tea]
JH: Spanish fly, watch out! [makes sound effect]
EL: [laughing]
JH: It's on now. She got him where she wants him.
[Kevin falls]
JH: Ooop, there he goes.
[Kate cries and puts her necklace in Kevin's hand]
CC: Just another really great scene, though. Really great, you know, emotional moment for Kate here. And you know, obviously this is all sort of building to... now we're heading into the end run of this episode, which is the end of our little mini-pod here, with Jack doing the surgery, and uh, basically doing it so that Kate and Sawyer can get liberated here. [pause] I never did get an answer to my question, though, truly, Josh. What is your process like, what do you do to prep when you get a script? Do you... what do you do?
JH: Um... well, what I'll do is first, once I get the script back from my wife, who takes it from me and locks herself in the bathroom 'til she's finished... What I'll do is I like to take probably at least fifteen, twenty minutes to just sit and think about it. I'll grab a script, I'll read like the first stage direction or set-up, and then put it down.
CC: Mm-hm.
JH: And then just wait fifteen minutes of thinking about what it could be, which for me creates a space for it.
EL: Hmm.
JH: And then I sit down and read it, and I get a better, cleaner first impression then. And then, like Evi was saying, that's huge... I read it as an audience first, to get a first impression, to see what happens to my emotions with it.
CC: Right.
JH: And then... I love the fact that we don't have a lot of time to prepare, Carlton.
[laughter]
EL: [sing-song voice] We love you...
JH: I love the fact that we don't have a lot of time to prepare, because now we know these characters, and it is more real to life, we are more spontaenous, and are able to do that with these characters because we know them so well. I can do it the same day - you give me the material, I run it through Sawyer, now I know the door to get there.
CC: Well, good. That's kind of liberating for Season 4, isn't it, really?
[laughter]
JH: No, I said I could if I had to.
EL: [laughing] Thanks, Josh.
JH: Oh my God, what have I done now?
CC: It's pretty funny, we're recording this commentary during the shooting of the finale, and it was about as behind as we've ever been. I mean, we literally had shot a couple of scenes before we ever published the script of this thing, because just the production realities... And, you know, Damon and I wrote the finale in, like, nine days. It was like writing a two-hour movie.
JH: Wow.
CC: And literally the first part we had to actually send down like the first four days of scenes, and Jack Bender, who's directing it, sort of said, 'These are the ones I'm gonna shoot first.' And we sent those down in sort of a lump to him while we were still writing the rest of the script, so they had something to prepare.
EL: Right.
CC: But it was about as behind as we've been, and yet, somehow it's all kind of working out.
JH: You've trained us well. Now we can do it.
EL: [laughing]
CC: It is a benefit, that you guys are so ingrained in the characters now.
JH: And yet it allows for growth in the characters, because we're not pre-set in our emotions and what's gonna happen. We haven't really got a plan. So it's nice when the characters do change and they are evolving, it allows us to allow that. Because a lot of times an actor will get in their own way of, you know, having an idea about something and hard to break the mold of that. And in this situation, we're not allowed that, which is nice. It works for me, anyway. I enjoy it.
EL: Filming the finale, which we're doing right now, um, there's a lot of group scenes where the entire original cast was back together again, and Daniel made the observation that the environment now is so different than what it used to be when, say, in Season 1 when we were filming these group scenes. Because in Season 1 we were all very reverent and very serious and we committed and the scene, you know, was something that we took very seriously. Now, we're all goofing off and joking around and having fun, and he said part of that is just because we now know our characters so well, we know the island so well, we can do it with our eyes closed. You know, we just.. it's become something that's second nature to us. Our characters are like an extension of ourselves now. And so we don't need to be as intense about preparing and thinking about how we're gonna prepare a scene, and actually playing it. We can just do it, it just comes out of us.
CC: Yeah. [pause] Tucker Gates, who directed this episode, is one of our visiting directors... and you know, Tucker's very busy with a lot of other things, so he's not available to do a ton of episodes, but he's really an excellent director. And it was actually Tucker's idea to do this last scene in the rain, which, you know, was one of those things where we go, 'Oh, we really should have thought of that ourselves.' But it was really an element that I think, you know, just added enormously to the intensity of the scene.
EL: Mm.
CC: And rain is really very metaphorically significant in our show. I mean, when rain shows up, bad things tend to happen.
JH: Mm-hm.
EL: Yeah.
JH: I remember this scene, and I was so tired at this point of being beaten down. I fought with Tucker, because I really felt like he needed to not just lay down and walk out of the cage and take it. So we made that scene more dramatic... the fight not to die more significant. And it came out of that emotion of constantly being in that, and being beaten down and not doing anything about it. So I really dig Tucker for having to put up with my emotion there and helping us find a way through it that made sense.
EL: Yeah. Well, I think Kate and Sawyer are both fighters. You know, neither of them...
JH: That was it. It just didn't make sense that they would just lay down.
EL: Mm-hm.
JH: So we had to really amp that a bit.
EL: And I think they also both for the first time, maybe in their lives, have something worth fighting for.
JH: Right.
EL: And that's what kind of breaks my heart in this scene, is that I think Kate displays some of the girliest qualities you ever see her display, in this scene. She's kind of weak and whimpery about the whole thing, but I.. for me, where that came from was that 'I just for the first time, maybe ever, finally connected to someone, and feel like I have something here, and something worth fighting for and worth living for, and now you're gonna take it away.' And I feel like Sawyer is, again, in the same situation, where this is the first time, maybe ever in his life, where he's found someone who he can love. And now he's about to be killed.
CC: And by the way, you know no one seems to learn the lesson, if you have sex on the island.. it's just not a good thing to have sex on this show.
[laughter]
CC: It pretty much leads to bad results.
JH: You know what? I'll take the good with the bad.
[Kate talking to Jack via walkie-talkie]
CC: So here's the big, you know... all this leads up to the big, kind of cliffhanger moment, which the audience had to live with for four months. And you know, I think we kind of learned in hindsight that the show works better when you run all the episodes together. You can have one cliffhanger at the end of the year...
JH: Right.
CC: I mean, this was good, I think this was really good, but you know, it was painful for the audience to have to wait four months to see this finally get paid off.
EL: Well, I think that it was the only thing that bugged me about that, was that when we came back, they were airing previews for it a long time before we came back, and in the previews they showed Kate and Sawyer running in the jungle. So you knew they got away. They gave away that payoff!
["Kate, damn it, run!"]
CC: Well, there it is. Well all I can say is, I think I've learned something today.
EL: [laughs]
JH: I've definitely learned something. I'm not very good at commentary in the morning.
EL: I've learned about Carlton's process of seeing his writing through and performing it out with the actors. I didn't realize you guys had rehearsed those sex scenes together. That was good information.
CC: There has to be a carrot to go with the stick.
JH: Now you understand why they're so tight.
EL: [laughs]
JH: Yeahhh...
CC: Well, thank you guys, and we'll talk to you again sometime soon.
EL: Thank you.
JH: We enjoyed it!
CC: Bye.
JH: Bye.
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