INT: Matthew Fox

Having reclaimed his TV stardom with his second major TV hit
series “Lost” (the first being “Party of Five”),
Matthew Fox moves to the big screen to face the challenge of another
disaster resulting from an airplane crash.
Portraying a castaway, heroic doctor fighting to stay alive
in hope of rescue on a mysterious island in “Lost”, he
embodies a different type of plane crash survivor, tormented with
guilt and grief in the upcoming film WE
ARE MARSHALL.

This film is the true story of a horrific and fatal plane
crash carrying the Marshall University football team along with the
entire department back from a game. Fox
plays assistant football coach, Red Dawson whose fate is altered by
a last minute decision preventing him from taking the flight and
ultimately is not only faced with the tragic loss of his team but
also suffering from a case of survivor’s guilt.
The stunning calamity leaves the small, tight knit community
grieving an unbearable loss until Coach Lengyel comes on board to
help rebuild a team and restore faith.

Matthew Fox was incredibly sweet and grounded when we met
last week to get some inside scoop on “Lost” and learn
about the various challenges he faced in representing a devastated
young man faced with a the aftermath of a tragic event, struggling
to move forward.  Check
out what he had to say.

Matthew
Fox

You
look like you’re freezing?

You
live in Hawaii and everywhere you go you’re freezing.

You’re
Canadian, though?

No,
I’m from Wyoming.

Are
you tempting airline karma on purpose?

I
didn’t even really make that connection. It was Jorge Garcia from
Lost, he plays Hurley, when he found out I was doing We Are
Marshall, he texted me: ‘What is it with you and plane crashes?’
I didn’t even make the connection; it didn’t cross my mind.

Were
you familiar with the story?

I
wasn’t. I read the script and thought it was beautiful and moving.
I seem to find myself attracted to true stories. And then I met with
McG a couple of weeks after I read the script, and that was awesome
and he was amazing. We talked for like a couple of hours and I just
walked out of that meeting thinking I would be in great hands. I
think I committed to him the next day, which is really quick for me
– normally I have to sort of let things sit for a little while.

You
have some very emotional scenes – there’s one at the end where
you’re crying for a while. Where did you have to go to get the
emotion for it? Was it from talking to Red?

I
don’t ever use stuff from my own life. It was all about
empathizing with him and understanding what that year was. That
moment at the end of the movie has to be a cathartic release for him
because we don’t ever see him do that in the movie. You want to
have the sense that he’s really torn up and he is destroyed,
almost, on the inside, but he won’t let it out. He’s holding on
to it and blocking it down and it’s not until after that game,
finding himself in a locker room that is empty of people that should
have been there – that’s the trigger that suddenly there’s
some sort of catharsis for him. Hopefully you have the feeling that
there’s some optimism for him and hope down the road.

How
did Red feel about the film? Did you have a chance to talk to him
about it, and how did he feel about the crying?

I’m
pretty sure I don’t cry except for that moment in the locker room.
75 people, many of whom were 18, 19 year old kids whose mothers he
looked in the eyes and said, ‘I’m going to take care of your
boys at Marshall’ and he didn’t keep that promise… I think
that even Red, who is an incredibly strong, intense and almost John
Wayne type of frickin’ character, he cried a lot. When I took the
film he said to me, ‘You’re going to have to…’ When he
called me after he’d seen the movie – that was the one phone
call I was waiting for the most. I had heard the movie was coming
together beautifully, but until Red Dawson called me, that was an
awesome moment. I heard in his voice how proud of the movie he is
and how happy he is how it turned out.

When
did you meet the real Red?

I
wanted to meet him as early as possible. I was shooting Lost so I
couldn’t leave the island. Ideally I would have liked to have seen
him in Huntington, but I couldn’t. So I called him and said,
‘Look, I would much rather come down and see you, but I can’t,
and these are the reasons why’ – because Red didn’t know about
Lost – ‘would you consider flying to Hawaii?’ The guy hadn’t
been on a plane in 35 years, or had done very little flying, and was
very uncomfortable with it.

I
knew the chances were very slim and it was a big ask. He called me
back a couple of days later and said he would like to come, and he
came out and spent some time with my family, hung out with my kids,
Margherita made him her lasagna, and we just hung out for a couple
of days and got to know each other. And he came to the set for a
couple of days, because I was shooting, and met all the people I
work with. I think that was fun for him because I don’t think
he’d ever been on a set before. Then we started talking about
1970, which was getting to work. I had about six weeks to prepare,
so I wanted that to happen as soon as possible and I wanted to get
as much time with him as possible. We figured that out and made it
work.

How
is he coping with it today?

The
beautiful thing is that this movie, and this experience, this whole
year, has been a very cathartic thing for him. He told me as much
after he saw the film; he called me and we talked about that. When I
was in Atlanta his brother was visiting, Rhett – these are strong,
silent guys. They both played college football, and Rhett got
inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame, he was a pro as well. Rhett
pulled me aside in the middle of the night, he got me away from Red,
and he was emotional and he started thanking me for what this
experience is doing for Red. I just thought to myself, that’s
absolutely amazing. I want this movie to turn out to be great, but
if the only thing that comes out of it is that it is a cathartic
experience for Red or anybody else still dealing with the memory of
that, that’s pretty great. He’s happy.

Do
you play football?

I
played football all the way through college. So yeah, I know the
game and I love the game. I don’t think of this as a football
movie – it’s just not – but it has the backdrop of it, and
that aspect of what the role was going to require, the coaching
aspect and what kind of coach Red Dawson was, that stuff was easy
because I know the game well. Combine that with the fact that I feel
I got a good idea of who Red Dawson was, so… yeah, it was fun. It
was fun to get to that, too. And I imagine that’s how he felt in
1970. Even though there was an enormous sense of trepidation about
stepping back on that field, there also had to be a sense of release
and a place where he could be free of that a little bit.

What
was the last romantic thing you did for your wife, and why do you
make a good couple?

[whispers]
I never do anything romantic for my wife. What’s the last romantic
thing? Every week we go out to dinner together. We have two kids and
we try to make sure we get date night. We go out and we catch up and
talk about stuff we haven’t had a chance to talk about during the
week. And why do we make a good couple? Because we fight really
well. I think that’s a very underestimated aspect of why
relationships last. Everybody thinks it’s about loving very well,
but that’s the easy part. You have to be able to fight really
well.

How
is it living in Hawaii?

It’s
like anything. You start to take it for granted and become bored by
how perfectly beautiful it is every day and how there are no
seasonal changes. Nah, it’s great. I love it. My kids are very
happy there. I was looking for a way to get out of Los Angeles
anyway, and this gig coming up and it being in Hawaii, Margherita
and I have been traveling there for a few years – like 8 years –
on vacation, and we were always joking about how great it would be
if we got a gig there and shot there for a bit. It’s great there;
the kids are really happy and in a great school. I think that
we’re not going to stay there past the life of Lost, because
personally I really do want to live somewhere that has seasons. I
miss that.

Speaking
of seasons, where are you spending the holidays?

In
Hawaii.

What
kind of gift would you like to get for the holidays, and what are
you planning on giving your wife?

I
have a lot of Christmas shopping to do. I think I’m a pretty hard
person to get gifts for. My wife complains about that every year.
Honestly, I want as much time – I have been on the road a lot, and
I’ve been away from my kids for a while. I just feel so blessed,
and so lucky for where I am in my life right now. I would just want
to spend a lot of time with my wife and kids over the holidays –
that would be the best gift I could get.

What
do Lost fans say to you when they come up to you in the street?

Right
now it’s like, ‘What, you guys have to go off the air for a
couple of months and now I find you in New York? Why aren’t you in
Hawaii making new episodes?’ And I’m like, ‘Actually we’re
still shooting, the break didn’t mean anything to us.
Everybody’s shooting, I just happen to not be shooting. I won’t
tell you why.’

Uh
oh.

I
don’t know if you saw SNL last weekend, but we did this sketch
called The Elevator Sketch where I’m playing myself on an elevator
and the rest of the [SNL] cast get in and they’re playing UPS guys
and shit, and they get into an argument about the show. I think
it’s a tribute to the show; I appreciate it. The show isn’t just
about the 43 minutes someone is getting an installment of; it’s
about what they’re talking about after.

As
far as having the set on Hawaii, do people go there now just looking
for the set? How do you keep tourists away?

We’ve
got a lot of very big, nasty looking security guards. We shoot all
over the island. From where I live there are some commutes to the
north shore that take about an hour, and then to the stages –
which is mostly where I’ve been because of the whole captivity
thing – it’s 40 minutes, depending on traffic. But those rides
are nice. Driving around Hawaii is cool.

Last
year during your break you shot two films, this and Vantage Point.
Would you have the energy to do that again next break?

Honestly,
shooting both those films was really rejuvenating to me in some
respect. I’m exhausting, and it was a long summer. I was shooting
6 days a week all summer, but I got back to Lost with my creativity
fired up. I’ll be looking for something to do over my next hiatus,
but it would be the kind of thing where… that time is valuable to
me, and the only way I would do something is if it’s something
that made me compelled, that I had to do it and that I had to be a
part of it. Because the other opportunity is that I get to spend the
entire summer with my two kids and my wife and my friends. The
reality is that relationships do suffer when you’re as busy as
I’ve been for the past year. That’s the trade off. That’s the
trade off I’m constantly wrestling with.

How
many tattoos do you have, and what were the circumstances under
which you got them?

I
don’t ever tell anybody what they mean, but they’re all very
meaningful for me. I have a bunch of them, on my shoulders and my
back and my arm. I really like the process and they’re about
events or moments that happen to me that I think are really
important and things that feel worthy of something that I want to
carry my whole life. I also love the idea that there will be moments
when I’m older and I’ll look at them and say, ‘Really?
That’s what you were thinking when you were 28 years old?’

But
don’t they have to put make up on them every time you do a movie?

It’s
really easy. They all use this spray gun stuff. It’s like painting
a car, man.

Damon
Lindelof has said he envisions Lost going five or six years. But if
it continues to be a big hit and ABC keeps throwing money at it, it
might go longer. Do you say, ‘I am doing five years on this and I
am out,’ or do you say, ‘I’ll stick with this as long as the
creators can make it work’?

I
haven’t really thought a whole lot about that, actually. I don’t
want to look too far down the road; I’m happy where we are now. I
hope the show stays on as long as it takes to tell the story.
Ultimately that’s all I care about. If it feels like it’s
because we’re so successful around the world and kind stretching
it out, that would be a bummer. But I don’t feel that way. I feel
like Damon and JJ and all those guys over there that are creating
this thing, it began with a plane crash on an island and they know
the final conflict, and they’re getting from A to B, and at this
point they’re getting there as quickly as they want to get there,
as quickly as the story dictates they get there.

You
have two signature TV roles in your filmography. Post-Lost, do you
see yourself doing more TV, or is it time to move on to features?

Again,
I don’t really think too much about that. I would say that I think
will probably be my last television experience. I think some of the
best storytelling we’ve got going is on TV right now, and in my
mind Lost is included in that, so it’s not that snobby thing that
you can find in Hollywood sometimes about, ‘Now I’m going to go
off and do fil-umms.’ It’s more about what that means for my
life, and how much time I get to spend with my family. The thing I
love about making movies is that you’re telling a story that has a
beginning and an end and you know what goes between. You go out and
pour 110% of yourself into it for a contained period of time. You
live it, you meet new people, and then it’s done. You can check
out for a little while, get back into your life, re-nurture your
relationships, and then you look for the next experience like that.
It’s not that 8-½ month out of the year, constantly moving ahead
story. 

Are
you jealous that Kate ended up with Sawyer?

Not
at all. Jack might be!