Post by bobdoc on Feb 2, 2010 9:30:19 GMT -4
The first of certainly many Michael interviews from today is at www.craveonline.com/entertainment/tv/article/lost-michael-emerson-on-ben-linus-95715
As Lost comes to a close this season, many of the storylines are wrapped around Ben Linus. Remember when Michael Emerson was just a guest star playing Henry Gale in the hatch? Maybe you always knew he’d be more important, but everyone’s sure caught on by now. As the final season of Lost starts, all the reporters of the Television Critics Association wanted to talk to Emerson.
Q: Have you been on Ben’s side the whole time?
Michael Emerson: I think you’re always, because a character on some level lives in side you, then yeah. It’s important that you find, if not sympathy for your character, then at least you have to be comfortable with them.
Q: After all the shocking and manipulative things he’s done, was there anything you thought, “Oh, that’s rough?”
Michael Emerson: Oh yeah, I’ve often been shocked by the things they’ve had me do. The assassination of the Dharma initiative, when I read it I thought, “My god, that’s harsh. That’s so dark. There’s no good spin to be put on this thing.” Yet I carry on in the believe that everything on the show can be recontextualized further down the line.
Q: When you started you were the leader of the Others and the island. Now Locke has taken over. That’s a tremendous arc of change for your character, so was that hard for you to do?
Michael Emerson: All of what made Benjamin great or a leader he carries inside him and still does, so it wasn’t an acting demand to make that change, I really do play the scripts as they come and I don’t ever even think about the big arc. Your question refers to a large arc that I’m not conscious of in my day to day work.
Q: What’s your take on Ben’s relationship with Locke in general?
Michael Emerson: They’re like black and white, they’re constantly circling around each other’s center of gravity, they’re great foils for one another and mirrors for one another, and I’ll be curious to see how I’ll answer that question when we end it.
Q: What was your reaction to that finale?
Michael Emerson: I thought it was a great season-ender from a series that always has great season endings, and I thought it was brilliant that it was a two-part cliffhanger. Each one of them is sufficiently mind-bending to lure you into the next season. In our case, it was astonishing, and I was happy to play the scene that I got to play. The character I play behaves in a calculated way very often. Every once in a while he does something completely childish or impulsive, and he got to do that at the end. I was very surprised when I read the script and most happy to play it.
Q: Was it easier to come into this show than to be there from the beginning?
Michael Emerson: It was nice because there were no expectations from me or from them, it was another guest spot and I do those all the time. Had I known that I was enjoying a TV marriage of four years, I might have been so nervous that I would have wrecked it. I’m glad it worked out the way it did.
Q: Was it hard to fit in or did you say right away, “This feels like home to me?”
Michael Emerson: It’s just work. You bring your professional game and then over a period of time then you do become family, so it worked out at the appropriate pace I think.
Q: Can you talk about Alan Dale and the Charles Widmore character, do you think there should be a showdown?
Michael Emerson: I think it’s really juicy and I love playing scenes with him. Theirs is one of the great confrontations in the show. Of course, you haven’t seen the last of that collision of wills.
Q: How has this show totally changed your life, or do you feel it has?
Michael Emerson: I’m a person that absorbs things slowly, so I’m not sure I fully get what has happened to me. Probably when the show’s over and I leave Hawaii, in retrospect I’ll see the thing for what it is.
Q: How did it feel to win the Emmy? Did you expect it?
Michael Emerson: It was really exciting and dizzying, and you feel both validated and unworthy, it’s a lot of conflicting emotions. A couple of times I let myself hope for it, and then not getting it I thought, “Oh, I should stop wishing.” As soon as I gave up hope then it came to me but I suppose a lot of things work that way in life.
Q: One time you were up, Terry won it.
Michael Emerson: Yes, I was so delighted, it just seemed like the most natural, wonderful and deserved thing. I never felt more wholeheartedly in support of a choice for an award than his win at the Emmys that year.
Q: Is there a key to playing a character who we see as bad, but maybe you don’t see as bad?
Michael Emerson: I don’t know if there’s a key. The writers take care of that, but I try to keep it simple, play in the middle, play in a neutral or ambiguous palette and let the audience draw their own conclusions. It’s a load of fun. It’s the best kind of acting I think is to play mysteriously, for the audience to be interested but unknowing.
Q: At the end of this, what if it turns out he’s the hero of this whole thing?
Michael Emerson: I’ve always thought that was completely possible and may yet be. We’re more than half the way to the end of this season and I have no idea how things work out. I thought surely when we started work on season six that I would be able to see the path to the end, but I’m still thrashing around.
Q: They haven’t told you any more than what you’re doing?
Michael Emerson: I only know what I get each script. Working on Lost has upset most of my previous ideas about actor preparation. It's actually better, working on this show, to be in the dark, just groping around a bit, and it's nice not to be burdened with the secrets and trying to play the future before it arrives. Those sorts of things just get in the way.
Q: Is Matthew Fox the only one who knows how it’s going to end? He keeps talking about it, saying he knows.
Michael Emerson: People have always thought that Matthew knows the end. I don’t know what they base that on. I don’t know whether he does or not. I certainly don’t know. How would he ever prove that he knew it once the world sees it, unless he tape-recorded something, dated it and put it in a safe deposit box?
Q: Have you thought how you’d like it to end?
Michael Emerson: I trust our writers who have a so much larger imagination than I have, whatever I come up with it’s usually falter-y and insufficient.
Q: We do know that the season starts right after the finale ended, so how will things play after the big surprise with Ben and Jacob?
Michael Emerson: I’m trying to think back to when we filmed it. I don’t think I have anything useful to say to you on that subject.
Q: Does it get more confusing the more that is explained?
Michael Emerson: I’m a person that is always the last to figure things out in real life. Often I depend on other people to tell me what I just did on Lost because I’m kind of clueless and, as I say, slow.
Q: What has surprised you most about your character?
Michael Emerson: I’m surprised that he’s been on the show this long and is still as interesting as he is.
Q: What will you miss about playing him?
Michael Emerson: The fun of the playing, the ease and comfort of knowing that you already have the character solved, so you don’t have the anxiety of creating a character every day you go to work. I can put on the clothes and I’m pretty much ready to play Benjamin Linus. I don’t know when I’ll ever have that kind of ease in my work again.
Q: Are you a different actor now from doing this series?
Michael Emerson: I won’t be able to tell until I go back to the stage and really have to learn lines and rehearse and again.
Q: Is it that easy doing the show?
Michael Emerson: On a certain level it’s easy, I don’t have to invent a character every day and I don’t have to jump start a whole story every day, like you do when you’re doing a play.
Q: Do you have anything lined up?
Michael Emerson: I don’t have any work lined up in the future after Lost, it’s still too far off.
Q: What was your favorite moment from your experience on Lost?
Michael Emerson: I have lots of found memories of breathless confrontations in small rooms. Jacob's cabin and the hatch and Widmore's bedroom, those kind of scenes always so dark and scary. I love those. But the working moment that captures the whole of it best for me is when Ben and Sawyer are standing on the cliff. We were working at Makapuu and looking out over the sea and trading quotes from Steinbeck and I had a rabbit in a backpack. It was so absurd and beautiful, majestic scenery, and I thought we should just put down the cameras now and just stand here and look at this.
Q: Have you been on Ben’s side the whole time?
Michael Emerson: I think you’re always, because a character on some level lives in side you, then yeah. It’s important that you find, if not sympathy for your character, then at least you have to be comfortable with them.
Q: After all the shocking and manipulative things he’s done, was there anything you thought, “Oh, that’s rough?”
Michael Emerson: Oh yeah, I’ve often been shocked by the things they’ve had me do. The assassination of the Dharma initiative, when I read it I thought, “My god, that’s harsh. That’s so dark. There’s no good spin to be put on this thing.” Yet I carry on in the believe that everything on the show can be recontextualized further down the line.
Q: When you started you were the leader of the Others and the island. Now Locke has taken over. That’s a tremendous arc of change for your character, so was that hard for you to do?
Michael Emerson: All of what made Benjamin great or a leader he carries inside him and still does, so it wasn’t an acting demand to make that change, I really do play the scripts as they come and I don’t ever even think about the big arc. Your question refers to a large arc that I’m not conscious of in my day to day work.
Q: What’s your take on Ben’s relationship with Locke in general?
Michael Emerson: They’re like black and white, they’re constantly circling around each other’s center of gravity, they’re great foils for one another and mirrors for one another, and I’ll be curious to see how I’ll answer that question when we end it.
Q: What was your reaction to that finale?
Michael Emerson: I thought it was a great season-ender from a series that always has great season endings, and I thought it was brilliant that it was a two-part cliffhanger. Each one of them is sufficiently mind-bending to lure you into the next season. In our case, it was astonishing, and I was happy to play the scene that I got to play. The character I play behaves in a calculated way very often. Every once in a while he does something completely childish or impulsive, and he got to do that at the end. I was very surprised when I read the script and most happy to play it.
Q: Was it easier to come into this show than to be there from the beginning?
Michael Emerson: It was nice because there were no expectations from me or from them, it was another guest spot and I do those all the time. Had I known that I was enjoying a TV marriage of four years, I might have been so nervous that I would have wrecked it. I’m glad it worked out the way it did.
Q: Was it hard to fit in or did you say right away, “This feels like home to me?”
Michael Emerson: It’s just work. You bring your professional game and then over a period of time then you do become family, so it worked out at the appropriate pace I think.
Q: Can you talk about Alan Dale and the Charles Widmore character, do you think there should be a showdown?
Michael Emerson: I think it’s really juicy and I love playing scenes with him. Theirs is one of the great confrontations in the show. Of course, you haven’t seen the last of that collision of wills.
Q: How has this show totally changed your life, or do you feel it has?
Michael Emerson: I’m a person that absorbs things slowly, so I’m not sure I fully get what has happened to me. Probably when the show’s over and I leave Hawaii, in retrospect I’ll see the thing for what it is.
Q: How did it feel to win the Emmy? Did you expect it?
Michael Emerson: It was really exciting and dizzying, and you feel both validated and unworthy, it’s a lot of conflicting emotions. A couple of times I let myself hope for it, and then not getting it I thought, “Oh, I should stop wishing.” As soon as I gave up hope then it came to me but I suppose a lot of things work that way in life.
Q: One time you were up, Terry won it.
Michael Emerson: Yes, I was so delighted, it just seemed like the most natural, wonderful and deserved thing. I never felt more wholeheartedly in support of a choice for an award than his win at the Emmys that year.
Q: Is there a key to playing a character who we see as bad, but maybe you don’t see as bad?
Michael Emerson: I don’t know if there’s a key. The writers take care of that, but I try to keep it simple, play in the middle, play in a neutral or ambiguous palette and let the audience draw their own conclusions. It’s a load of fun. It’s the best kind of acting I think is to play mysteriously, for the audience to be interested but unknowing.
Q: At the end of this, what if it turns out he’s the hero of this whole thing?
Michael Emerson: I’ve always thought that was completely possible and may yet be. We’re more than half the way to the end of this season and I have no idea how things work out. I thought surely when we started work on season six that I would be able to see the path to the end, but I’m still thrashing around.
Q: They haven’t told you any more than what you’re doing?
Michael Emerson: I only know what I get each script. Working on Lost has upset most of my previous ideas about actor preparation. It's actually better, working on this show, to be in the dark, just groping around a bit, and it's nice not to be burdened with the secrets and trying to play the future before it arrives. Those sorts of things just get in the way.
Q: Is Matthew Fox the only one who knows how it’s going to end? He keeps talking about it, saying he knows.
Michael Emerson: People have always thought that Matthew knows the end. I don’t know what they base that on. I don’t know whether he does or not. I certainly don’t know. How would he ever prove that he knew it once the world sees it, unless he tape-recorded something, dated it and put it in a safe deposit box?
Q: Have you thought how you’d like it to end?
Michael Emerson: I trust our writers who have a so much larger imagination than I have, whatever I come up with it’s usually falter-y and insufficient.
Q: We do know that the season starts right after the finale ended, so how will things play after the big surprise with Ben and Jacob?
Michael Emerson: I’m trying to think back to when we filmed it. I don’t think I have anything useful to say to you on that subject.
Q: Does it get more confusing the more that is explained?
Michael Emerson: I’m a person that is always the last to figure things out in real life. Often I depend on other people to tell me what I just did on Lost because I’m kind of clueless and, as I say, slow.
Q: What has surprised you most about your character?
Michael Emerson: I’m surprised that he’s been on the show this long and is still as interesting as he is.
Q: What will you miss about playing him?
Michael Emerson: The fun of the playing, the ease and comfort of knowing that you already have the character solved, so you don’t have the anxiety of creating a character every day you go to work. I can put on the clothes and I’m pretty much ready to play Benjamin Linus. I don’t know when I’ll ever have that kind of ease in my work again.
Q: Are you a different actor now from doing this series?
Michael Emerson: I won’t be able to tell until I go back to the stage and really have to learn lines and rehearse and again.
Q: Is it that easy doing the show?
Michael Emerson: On a certain level it’s easy, I don’t have to invent a character every day and I don’t have to jump start a whole story every day, like you do when you’re doing a play.
Q: Do you have anything lined up?
Michael Emerson: I don’t have any work lined up in the future after Lost, it’s still too far off.
Q: What was your favorite moment from your experience on Lost?
Michael Emerson: I have lots of found memories of breathless confrontations in small rooms. Jacob's cabin and the hatch and Widmore's bedroom, those kind of scenes always so dark and scary. I love those. But the working moment that captures the whole of it best for me is when Ben and Sawyer are standing on the cliff. We were working at Makapuu and looking out over the sea and trading quotes from Steinbeck and I had a rabbit in a backpack. It was so absurd and beautiful, majestic scenery, and I thought we should just put down the cameras now and just stand here and look at this.
