Secrets of Lost
Lost might have easily been MIA by now. The new ABC drama's concept — plane-crash survivors fight to stay alive on an eerily remote island in the Pacific — seemed too gimmicky to generate sufficient juice for a weekly series. But leave it to J.J. Abrams, the dizzyingly inventive architect of Alias, and partner Damon Lindelof (Crossing Jordan) to create a genre-bending, character-driven thriller that, in five short weeks, has managed to become TV's most addictive new drama. Suddenly, anyone worth his watercooler is buzzing about Lost's world: What crime might feisty fugitive Kate (Evangeline Lilly) have committed? How exactly did Locke (Terry O'Quinn), a paraplegic before the doomed Oceanic Airlines flight, regain the use of his legs and become the island's lean, mean, wild boar-killing machine? Is Jack's (Matthew Fox) drunken, demanding dad really dead? And what is that unseen, malevolent monster that made mincemeat out of the plane's pilot? "We know," Lindelof teases. "And we promise by the end of the first year, the audience will know at least a little more." The Lost league may be cryptic, but that didn't deter TV Guide from digging up juicy show secrets. — Shawna Malcolm
1. Matthew Fox has something in common with Richard Hatch.
"He likes to take all his clothes off," Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) reveals of his costar, who's been nicknamed "Foxy" by the cast. "Foxy is kind of free and easy." Lilly vividly recalls the first time she saw the former Party of Five star au naturel: "We were shooting the pilot. The cast had had a few alcoholic beverages, and he jumped into the ocean at, like, 5 am. It's like, 'Um, should I be seeing this?'" Fox, 38, makes no apologies for his naked ambitions. "We're [shooting] in Hawaii," he says with a laugh. "It's conducive to skinny-dipping. And I'm totally into people just being cool enough to be naked."
2. Don't expect these castaways to waste away.
"The reality is, you're not going to call up Jorge Garcia [who plays Hurley] and say, 'Lose 150 pounds over the course of the season,'" Lindelof says. "Tom Hanks took off months to [lose weight] for Castaway. And he was paid $20 million to do it." (And the Lost cast is earning, uh, nowhere near that.) In an effort to make the actors' regular weights seem more realistic, expect to see the characters routinely finding food. Plus, producers say each episode will represent only a day or two, which means that even if 22 episodes air this season, a maximum of 44 days would have elapsed by the Lost clock. Monaghan, however, is game for growing an unruly Hanks-style beard: "Not to have to shave, and I've still got a job? Fantastic!"
3. Inspiration comes in many forms, including Maury Povich.
The title of Charlie's band's fictitious hit, "You All Everybody" (which Monaghan sang a snippet of in the first episode), comes from a nonsensical rant uttered by a female audience member on an episode of Povich's tabloid talk show. While brainstorming ideas for lyrics days before shooting last spring, Abrams remembered the phrase and deemed it perfect for illustrating how disposable the band's music should sound. But to his surprise, a fleshed-out version of the song, which singer-songwriter Jude recently recorded for use in a flashback concert scene in the Nov. 3 episode, "is actually pretty great," Abrams says. "My dream is that we get the song put on iTunes and it becomes a big hit." He's joking. We think.
For seven other juicy secrets about Lost, pick up this week's magazine on the newsstand.
