A photographer snapped several pictures of a shirtless Matthew Fox standing on his hotel balcony. I guess the weather must have been nice!
Matthew Fox, without his shirt, on a balcony in Rome, July 2009
You can see a full set of 18 pictures of Matthew’s day — many pictures of him with his wife, son, and mother, seeing the sights of Rome, as well as a few more balcony shots, one showing off his tattoo — on JustJared.com.
I also found an interesting description of Tuesday’s Fiction Fest event, written by Elisabetta, an Italian blogger who was there with a group of fellow hardcore Matthew Fox fans. They showed up wearing Dharma jumpsuits! Elisabetta writes about how they were screaming — so they may have been the ones whose screams you can hear on the video of the master class when Matthew Fox walked onto the stage. Read a detailed description of their day, and see a picture of them in their jumpsuits, on the Foxy and Jack Rule blog.
Here’s a three-minute promo that was shown at the Roma Fiction Fest this week. The promo focuses on how LOST is a global phenomenon. At the end, there’s a little teaser for Season 6, aka the “Destiny Found” season.
Also, while I was browsing on YouTube, I found a cute (though shaky) video clip of Terry O’Quinn (Locke) and Jorge Garcia (Hurley) at the first Roma Fiction Fest, two years ago:
They sure are getting around! They conducted a master class today at the Roma Fiction Fest, an event, now in its third year, dedicated to television drama.
Here’s the opening of the LOST program. It’s fun to hear the way people scream “Matthew!” when Fox walks onto the stage.
In the next video, the master class begins. Damon, Carlton, and Jack Bender talk about the early days of the show, why they think it is special — and how they got away with doing weird things. Questions are in Italian and answers in English:
It looks like the master class lasted about an hour and a half. There are nine videos covering it, which you can find here: LOST at Roma Fiction Fest on YouTube.
TV Overmind has posted a transcript of the July 3 London panel discussion with Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and Jack Bender that I mentioned in my last post.
Highlights:
Season 6 will have 16 episodes, with the first and the last each being two hours.
They will start shooting Season 6 soon — on August 24.
Producer/writer Damon Lindelof
Damon, on Jack and Locke and things happening “for a reason” (give that man a duck with $100):
I’m a huge fan of whenever Jack and Locke talk to each other. We’ve been very judicious in having those guys talk to each other. It happens very rarely. I go back to White Rabbit and that six or seven minute long scene where they’re just sitting in the jungle. And Jack says he’s following the impossible, and Locke says what if it’s not impossible and we were all put here for a reason. And that scene is the genesis for those guys’ relationship. And if you think about how that was the third episode shot out of the pilot, here we are now, 100 episodes later, and now Jack is finally saying “Y’know, Locke might be onto something.”
(I think this is the scene in White Rabbit that Damon was talking about):
Producer/writer Carlton Cuse
Carlton, on how they write an episode (I love these little glimpses into the screenwriting process):
We spend a lot of time breaking each aspect of the story, and once we have the story worked out from beginning to end, we’ll put it up on whiteboard and then pitch it back to ourselves. And we’ll have scenes in different colors, with an on-island story, an off-island story, and a C-story, split it into six acts for the commercial breaks, and structure it so you’ll want to come back after each act. Then we’ll give it to some writers to rewrite and send back, and we’ll give our notes, make some changes.
Carlton, on destiny and how it relates to the writers themselves:
Q: You make a lot about the characters searching for their destiny and their purpose. Do you feel that you yourselves had a purpose in your own lives being involved in the show, or you’ve learned something about life from doing it?
Carlton: I think as writers we use the show to explore personal issues, spiritual or otherwise. We’re mainly concerned by how much faith and how much control do you have over your own destiny, something which is very fascinating to us… The writers’ room is diverse and that diversity gets worked out in the characters.
Damon, on the ending:
Q: I want to know about the end of LOST. Michael Emerson said in an interview this week that he suspects it will be quite bittersweet or melancholy. Is it going to be an upbeat ending or ambiguous? Just any kind of hint to the flavor of the ending.
Damon: All of the above. We are aspiring for an ending that is fair. Bittersweet comes with the territory. The ending will be different as for once, we won’t leave you on a cliffhanger. You will stay on the cliff this time.
(Darlton had mentioned earlier that they were done with time travel — see my post from May, Damon and Carlton talk about destiny and time loops — but I’m glad they confirmed it today. I’m looking forward to getting back to the character-centric stories.)
Earlier, I posted clips of Evangeline Lilly and Michael Emerson at last month’s Jules Verne Festival. Now, here are some clips of producers/writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, starting with their walking out on stage to extended applause, and then being introduced to the audience:
They start to answer questions. Carlton talks about how being dead on LOST doesn’t mean you won’t appear on the show again:
The questions continue, and this is where they talk about the ending of the show, and where it gets really interesting.
Damon says that they’ve known, for a long time, what the very last scene of the show will be. Carlton promises that the ending will not be that it “happens in a snow globe,” or that it “all takes place in a dream in a dog’s mind” — and that they won’t just cut to black, the way The Sopranos did.
He says they have a very appropriate and legitimate ending for the show, and they are excited about it, even if they are already starting to feel nostalgic about the show coming to an end.
Damon says that they will answer all the mysteries “that we care about” in the final episode. They won’t make us pay to see a movie to find out!
They also discuss the show’s theme of faith versus science. Carlton calls it one of the central philosophical debates of our time. He says that he, who is Catholic, and Damon, who was raised Jewish, debate these issues between themselves, and then they put the debates into the mouths of the characters. He says that the ongoing nature of the debate is what gives the show its thematic power.
Carlton says that they will take the debate to a conclusion that is, hopefully, satisfying. Damon says that so far on the show, faith seems to be winning.
The questions continue. Damon talks about the Dharma Initiative, which he describes as a group of people who say they are trying to make the world a better place, but are probably more violent than anyone else we have met on the Island. He says there is still “much to learn” about them.
Carlton says that we will get some more answers about the Smoke Monster in this season’s finale.
Damon talks about how difficult it was to cast the character of Kate, how he and J.J. Abrams had to audition almost 75 actresses.
And here you can see them receiving the Jules Verne Achievement Award:
Here’s hoping LOST wins all the awards it deserves!
Evangeline Lilly and Michael Emerson were there too, their identity having been kept a secret until the day they appeared, in a nod to the mysteries of the show.
This first clip is a little dark and shaky, but I love the excitement of the crowd, who were clapping and cheering and screaming as if they were at a rock concert combined with an Olympics final event.
In the beginning of this next clip, the crowd went wild again, counting down with the Dharma clock, and screaming when Evangeline Lilly came out.
The interviewers and Evangeline Lilly talked in French, and while I only know a few words of the language, the message was clear when Evangeline asked the crowd if they preferred Jack (boos) or Sawyer (big cheers).
Then Michael Emerson came out. More screams! Speaking in English, he had many interesting things to say about his character Benjamin Linus. At the end, some of the other stars, back in Hawaii, appeared in film clips to say hello to the Festival attendees. Josh Holloway got the biggest screams. Sawyer love is apparently the same all over the world.
How exciting this all looks! And how lucky the people who were there in the audience.
