Key to Locke
Feb. 2nd, 2010 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxFrom TVGuidemagazine.com:
There is one helluva shocker coming up on Lost’s season premiere involving John Locke, Ben Linus, and the Smoke Monster. The cloud of secrecy involving the mind-blowing scene is as thick as, well, old Smokey himself.
“I can tell you this,” executive producer Bryan Burk says of the big reveal: “My assistant, who always likes to be surprised, by accident found herself listening in on a phone call when we were working on the premiere, and she literally screamed, ‘Jesus!’ when she found out.”
It is only the latest twist involving a character who’s gone through more transformations than any other on Lost. When he crashed on the island back in 2004, John Locke was a sad sack who’d been dumped by his true love, duped out of a kidney by his sadistic father and paralyzed from the waist down after being pushed out the window of a high-rise apartment by, again, dear old dad. The island’s mysterious healing powers helped restore the use of his legs, but it wasn’t long before he found himself off the island and dead at the hands of Ben. So then who is the John Locke currently walking about the island?
The full identity of that man remains a mystery even to his perpetually perplexed portrayer, Terry O’Quinn. “I still can’t answer it myself,” says the 57-year-old actor during a golf break on a picturesque course near his home on Oahu’s North Shore. “Doing this role has been a pure act of faith. You go forward and assume there’s going to be something when you step there.”
Now, more than halfway through shooting the final season, O’Quinn may finally be getting some answers. “I am apparently some other incarnation who’s taken on John’s face, voice, body, sore knees,” he says. “He’s on a mission and he’s a dark presence, almost like the devil. The more the others know about him, the more fear he inspires.”
Further details of O’Quinn’s Season 6 story line remain under wraps, though we do know this much: The premiere reunites him with late island mate Boone (Ian Somerhalder [now Damon, The Vampire Diaries), and then a few episodes later, he appears in a house with former flame Helen (Katey Sagal). “The John I play with her is different,” hints O’Quinn. “He has a little bit more backbone. Things have happened to him.”
Early on, O’Quinn chose to seclude himself from his costars, staying as far away as possible from Lost’s set. But as shooting on the final two-hour episode nears, he has been spending time with the friends he’s made here. “I don’t socialize much,” says O’Quinn, whose wife, Lori, and two sons, Oliver, 28, and Hunter, 26, chose to stay back in their home state of Maryland. “But I’ve taken some walks with Michael [Emerson]; I’ve gone to Josh [Holloway’s] and out to lunch with Yunjin [Kim]. I find it remarkable that I will actually try to stay in touch with some of these people.”
And he refuses to abandon hope that one special friend might reappear before the screen goes black for good. “Given that this is Lost,” says O’Quinn, “until we shoot the final shot, I’m not totally convinced [that the old] John Locke’s not coming back.”<> But there’s really just one lingering mystery O’Quinn demands be resolved by the finale, and that is, he says, “What is the island? That does have to be answered. I don’t care who lives, who dies, who’s happy, who’s not. What was all this for? I can’t think of anything more important than that.”
“I can tell you this,” executive producer Bryan Burk says of the big reveal: “My assistant, who always likes to be surprised, by accident found herself listening in on a phone call when we were working on the premiere, and she literally screamed, ‘Jesus!’ when she found out.”
It is only the latest twist involving a character who’s gone through more transformations than any other on Lost. When he crashed on the island back in 2004, John Locke was a sad sack who’d been dumped by his true love, duped out of a kidney by his sadistic father and paralyzed from the waist down after being pushed out the window of a high-rise apartment by, again, dear old dad. The island’s mysterious healing powers helped restore the use of his legs, but it wasn’t long before he found himself off the island and dead at the hands of Ben. So then who is the John Locke currently walking about the island?
The full identity of that man remains a mystery even to his perpetually perplexed portrayer, Terry O’Quinn. “I still can’t answer it myself,” says the 57-year-old actor during a golf break on a picturesque course near his home on Oahu’s North Shore. “Doing this role has been a pure act of faith. You go forward and assume there’s going to be something when you step there.”
Now, more than halfway through shooting the final season, O’Quinn may finally be getting some answers. “I am apparently some other incarnation who’s taken on John’s face, voice, body, sore knees,” he says. “He’s on a mission and he’s a dark presence, almost like the devil. The more the others know about him, the more fear he inspires.”
Further details of O’Quinn’s Season 6 story line remain under wraps, though we do know this much: The premiere reunites him with late island mate Boone (Ian Somerhalder [now Damon, The Vampire Diaries), and then a few episodes later, he appears in a house with former flame Helen (Katey Sagal). “The John I play with her is different,” hints O’Quinn. “He has a little bit more backbone. Things have happened to him.”
Early on, O’Quinn chose to seclude himself from his costars, staying as far away as possible from Lost’s set. But as shooting on the final two-hour episode nears, he has been spending time with the friends he’s made here. “I don’t socialize much,” says O’Quinn, whose wife, Lori, and two sons, Oliver, 28, and Hunter, 26, chose to stay back in their home state of Maryland. “But I’ve taken some walks with Michael [Emerson]; I’ve gone to Josh [Holloway’s] and out to lunch with Yunjin [Kim]. I find it remarkable that I will actually try to stay in touch with some of these people.”
And he refuses to abandon hope that one special friend might reappear before the screen goes black for good. “Given that this is Lost,” says O’Quinn, “until we shoot the final shot, I’m not totally convinced [that the old] John Locke’s not coming back.”<> But there’s really just one lingering mystery O’Quinn demands be resolved by the finale, and that is, he says, “What is the island? That does have to be answered. I don’t care who lives, who dies, who’s happy, who’s not. What was all this for? I can’t think of anything more important than that.”
