Alison Bezzina

Lost and the handsome Jack Shephard had fuelled my daydreams for months on end. I kept imagining what was on the other side of the mysterious island, who on earth were ‘the others', and where that black smoke was coming from. After so many questions and so little answers, I resigned to feeling lost about Lost. Yet as fate would ironically have it, that was when I finally got to meet the man behind the infamous eye that opens the show - Matthew Fox.

A ravishing Fox walks into the room wearing a casual black suit and perfectly groomed skin. His deep set eyes make it clear from the start that there's more to this man than a pretty face. With him all over L'Oréal's advertising campaign in Europe, and with Lost in its sixth season, it's hard to believe that Matthew Fox could walk down the street unnoticed. Yet he claims to be a private person. "The day paparazzi turn up at my door will be the day that I quit," he says to a gaggle of hungry journalists dying to snap a scoop.

My impression is that Matthew doesn't want to really be here. "Don't you just get bored of all these interviews?" I ask him.

"That's a trick question," he replies. "The answer is ‘No' - it's the last season of Lost for me so I don't mind talking about it. It has been an amazing experience, so I am going to savour it and enjoy teasing people for one last time," he smiles. Then he adds: "You know, Jack Shephard was only meant to last for a couple of episodes. There was a version of the script where Jack gets killed in the second episode, but when the writers gave it to their wives and to some people that they trusted to read it, everybody kept coming back with, "You can't kill this guy. The show starts with a shot of this man's eye opening." So they changed it, and here I am."

"Are you relieved that this is going to be the last season of Lost?" I query.

"Well, I am obviously very excited about the next chapter of my life. I am not talking about my career here, but about my personal life, my family, and the direction we're taking. I am excited about leaving Hawaii. It has been wonderful and I have enjoyed it, but I am looking forward to going back to the mainland and a four season climate. I have also just bought my first plane, a Beechcraft Bonanza G36 - I can't wait to fly it, even though I have to wait until December for the delivery. I got my pilot's licence about nine years ago, my glider licence, and I recently got my single-engine land licence - that's the biggest gift I've ever bought myself."

"Back to Lost," Matthew adds, "I think that it is crucial that this story ends - otherwise, viewers would have been incredibly disappointed, and that would have been a disaster for us."

"So are we finally going to get some answers?" I encourage him.

"I don't think this season will give all the answers. And actually, it would be disappointing if the show tried to answer every question that it raised. Still, what happens to the characters will be very gratifying. The redemption that certain characters will find in sacrificing themselves will be very, very cool."

"Does that leave a door open for a movie?" I tease.

"No, no," Matthew replies.

"What about the ending?" I continue.

"It would be disappointing for our audience if I told you the ending. And anyway, I don't think people really want to know - I think they want to see it."

My curiosity muffled, but not killed, I decide to put Matthew on the metaphorical couch, and ask him about his childhood on a Wyoming farm and moving to New York.

"That was a big adjustment for me. I mean, if you saw where I grew up, it's incredibly remote, so moving to one of the biggest cities in the world was a huge change. It was quite a culture shock. Fortunately, I went to Colombia, which is a school that has its own defined campus on Manhattan, so you can let in as much of the city as you want. I certainly love New York and became very comfortable there, but I really look forward to getting back to more wide open spaces. I feel much better there."

"Originally, I was studying economics. When I was a senior in college, I went on one interview to go work on Wall Street. Something about that interview made me realise that I didn't want to do that. Acting was more like a default situation of like, "Well, maybe I'll just kick around in New York and study acting for a few years." I was morbidly fascinated by acting because I was painfully shy - it was difficult for me to go up in front of even ten people in a room and do a scene. Yet something about it was challenging and intriguing and I kept at it. Plan B was do play football professionally - I would have loved that."

During the filming of Lost, Matthew also had to cope with being away in Hawaii for long stretches. Was that another adjustment he had to make?

"There are many aspects to being a father - providing is a big one. A lot of fathers don't get to spend as much time with their children as they would like to. I am a firm believer in quality over quantity. I mean, I miss them a great deal. I have been away for a week now and my daughter and I text each other all the time. I know what she's doing right now and she knows what I'm doing right now and, you know, we do our best. But again I think that it depends on how you define fatherhood. I think that there's a version of a father where the woman is working and providing for the family and the father is a stay-at-home father, and then there's a version of a father who is out earning a living and providing for his family. Also my wife is the greatest mother in the world - she is amazing."

I finally ask him what his tattoo is about.

"It's about things that are personal to me," Matthew replies. "I can't describe them. They are things that have happened to me in my life or moments in my life that I wanted to mark. As I get older in life, I will look back at them and probably on a couple of occasions go, "I can't believe this." But I think that's pretty cool, you know? It's amazing how much will change."

 

First published on FM Magazine November 2009