Lost's Mr. Eko Reveals A Secret
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, the London-born actor who plays the mysterious Mr. Eko on ABC's hit series Lost, revealed to SCI FI Wire the directions he received in his pivotal scene—when he comes face-to-face with the island's monster—that may hint at the monster's true nature.
"I mean, it was just like, they didn't say anything," Akinnuoye-Agbaje said in an interview at the Television Critics Association's winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif. Rather, the actor said, he was hammered with directions: "'And here it comes! It's coming! It's coming! ... It's going to take your soul out! He's looking at your mother! He's looking at your grandmother! ... He's going right into your deep, dark past! He's showing it all right in front of your eyes!' I'm, 'What?' And they're saying all of this in a split-second, and you've got to translate all of these emotions in one-point-two of a second. 'And now he's around you! Now he's in your back! Now he's coming up through your throat!' ... I was crosseyed by the time I finished it [laughs]."
In the scene (spoilers ahead), Mr. Eko, one of the survivors of the ill-fated Oceanic Flight 815, encounters the monster, which appears to viewers as a billowing cloud of black smoke, in which flash images that appear to be scenes from Eko's past. "On top of it, you've got five cameramen with a big silver ball and a camera running at you, like, a hundred miles an hour," Akinnuoye-Agbaje said. "So I was scared, because he fell over a couple of times [laughs]. I was more afraid that he was going to hit me in the head with the camera than the damn monster [laughs heartily]."
Akinnuoye-Agbaje, an actor of Nigerian extraction who has a master's degree in law from King's College, University of London, added that his character developed differently from what was originally conceived.
"I think that the writers obviously brought this character in to be able to explore the more spiritual, mystical elements of the island," Akinnuoye-Agbaje said. "That's what they've told me about Eko. And, you know, they have the man of science, I believe, which is what Jack [Matthew Fox] represents. And then you have Locke [Terry O'Quinn], who's a man of philosophy, somewhat dark sometimes. And they wanted to juxtapose this man of faith against those. So it's like a pyramid. So that's where they originally perceived of him being placed. And I think beyond that, it's going to have to be an organic growth, because they watch how you interact, and then they see what comes from that. ... They have an idea, but who knows where it will end up?"
For one thing, the writers ended up making Mr. Eko more of an active character. "I know they originally conceived of him as a very passive character," Akinnuoye-Agbaje said. "But ... taking the shirt off of a 6-foot-2 black man and putting a stick in his hand, it doesn't matter how passive he is, it's not going to give that image. And so they got with that and implemented it, rather than fight against it, into the character." Lost airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
