Akkinuoye-Agbaje and faith in Lost

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From zap2it:

Finding a 'Lost' Faith
By Kate O'Hare
Thursday, February 02, 2006
11:49 AM PT

Although he did slightly flub the reading of "The 23rd Psalm" in the season two "Lost" episode by the same name -- it's "valley of the shadow of death," not "shadow of the valley of death" -- actor Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje has become at least temporarily associated with the Biblical prayer.

On Tuesday, Jan. 31, Akkinuoye-Agbaje accepted an invitation from Hawaii State Sen. Fred Hemmings (R-Lanikai-Waimanalo) and read "The 23rd Psalm" at an invocation before the Senate of the state where the hit ABC series is filmed.

"I'm a Buddhist," Akkinuoye-Agbaje tells Zap2it.com. "I certainly didn't expect this. Unbelievable. It's great, though."

According to published reports, Hemmings asked the actor to participate in the invocation after seeing the Wednesday, Jan. 11, episode which featured the prayer and Eko's backstory as a Nigerian drug dealer whose actions lead to the murder of his brother, a Roman Catholic priest.

After winding up on a deserted island as part of the survivors of the downed Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, Eko has taken on a priestly role, even baptizing fellow castaway Claire (Emilie deRavin) and her baby, Aaron. The episode also included Eko briefly donning the black suit and Roman collar.

Asked if he enjoyed that, Akkinuoye-Agbaje says, "Not really, because you have to be careful in those situations not to offend people's sensibilities. I know it's a delicate balance, because he's a murderer cloaking himself in somebody else's faith. There are a lot of devout Christians, so I wasn't too happy about doing it. The sooner I got out of it, I was glad.

"But I would hope that the end would warrant the means."

Though born in Britain, the actor's roots lie in Nigeria, and he has traveled there often. He hopes that fellow Nigerians are patient with Eko's story.

"It's not bad, though," he says. "It has a redemptive quality. You've only started. It's not the end, it's the beginning. There's a ways to go, so to start to judge it now would be premature. The fact that we show layers of complexity in a Nigerian character, as opposed to just as a drug dealer -- I was always adamant that there had to be some kind of dimension to him.

"People relate to him as a human being, not just as a Nigerian human being, but as a human being, because he messes up, but he's looking for redemption. Everybody messes up, and everybody looks for redemption.

"You've got to get dirty to get clean. That's life. But if you stop trying to get clean, that's when you're in trouble. That's why people have embraced Eko, because even though he got his brother murdered, he slashed those throats, he's very sincere in his attempt to redeem himself. That's what people relate to."

Eko is part of the survivors of the plane's tail section, who weren't introduced as regular characters until season two of "Lost." Season one focused on the center-section survivors. Among them, the self-proclaimed "man of faith" is former wheelchair-bound office worker John Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Miraculously healed from his paralysis after the crash, Locke feels that a great destiny awaits him on the island.

"They're both men of faith," says series writer/producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, "but they're men of very different faiths, and they came to their faith in different ways. Eko is someone who was selfishly driven at the beginning of life and then became a man of faith. That's a different destiny than someone who believes he's bound for greater things and is fulfilling a greater destiny that centers on himself.

"So I think there's definitely going to be a real clash of those ideologies."

"Well," Akkinuoye-Agbaje says, "anything can happen, can't it? Obi-Wan Kenobi can appear."
 
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