The Kristian Harloff Show - The ETERNALS Sequel is officially CANCELLED! | MCU | Interview Michael Emerson

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

The Eternals was a divisive marvel movie. It was also one of the lowest performing on box office to date. There are a lot of questions that were left unanswered by the end of the movie. So questions were also revolving around whether or not the film would get a sequel. it became more and more downfall as time went on. Now that doubt seems to be legitimate. Kevin Feige has confirmed that there is no sequel planned for the Eternals. Is this a good move? Bad move. Alien Romulus is coming out this weekend and the Reviews are in. It's scoring high. How high in the franchises history did it rank? Kristian and Roxy have an opportunity to speak with Ben Linus himself, Michael Emerson. Michael just finished four seasons of the show evil, he was in this year's fallout.you know him from person of interest and of course lost. We speak about all of those roles and more and his journey as an actor. #Eternals #Marvel #MCU #Lost #Acting #Interview. OUR SPONSORS: HIMS: ● Start your free online visit today at http://www.Hims.com/BIGTHING Plarium: RAID Shadow Legends https://bit.ly/RAID_TheKristianHarloff TUSHY: Stay shower-fresh all summer long and join the 2 million butts who already switched to TUSHY! For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off their first bidet order when you use code BIGTHING at checkout. https://hellotushy.com/BIGTHING LIQUID IV: Indulge in hydration this summer with Liquid I.V. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to http://www.LIQUIDIV.com and use code BIGTHING at checkout.

The Eternals, part two, not going to happen. That's right. They said, not going to happen. It looked like it was going to happen. Perhaps it was going to happen. Rumors that then it started to be like, doesn't look good, doesn't look good, not going to happen. So we'll talk about that.

Alien Romulus is looking good with the critics and looking good as far as box office goes. A few other things here and there. But Ben Linus, one of the scariest villains in all time. and we're talking about the actor that brought him to life. Michael Emerson, myself and Roxy Stryor, spoke to him about his series evil that just wrapped. We talked about Fallout.

There are some spoilers there. So if you haven't seen Fallout, fast forward when we start talking about Fallout. But we talk a lot about Lost. We talk about his journey in general as an actor. Really great conversation that we have with Michael Emerson overall. But this is the show today, so I hope you are going to enjoy it, man. We've got some good stuff here.

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere podcasts are found. Make sure you hit that button, subscribe to it. We got out of the theater reactions. I got a review for Alien Romulus up right now. We have some theater reactions, sorry, trailer reactions and other things. So go ahead, hit that button. Enjoy the show, and let's get to it.

What's up, everybody? Welcome back. It is the big thing. And it's Wednesday. Wednesday? I keep saying Wednesday. It's Thursday. It was Wednesday.

It's Thursday. I'm excited for you guys to be here. Don't worry. Roxy is going to be here today. Brett will be back. When we do the interview shows, though, Brett usually takes the week off. We did two of them back to back.

So we had a great. We had Nestor, Carbone Allen, from Shogun and Lost. You know, Michael Emerson on this week from evil, person of interest, and lost. So we'll do that. We'll discuss that. But then I also figured that I would get into a few of the stuff. Some of the stories. And one of the ones that I saw overall here was this one.

The Eternals, Marvel Studios has now confirmed they've scrapped the plans for the sequel. This coming via comic book movie. And they said, though we did pretty much know that this was the case anyway, we now do have the confirmation that Marvel Studios has scrapped the plans for a sequel to Eternals. MCU sequels used to be a regular occurrence, but Marvel Studios hasn't been as quick to green light direct follow-ups as of late and with good reason. Several recent sequels, three-equals, including Ant-Man and the Wasp and Quantummania and the Marvels, they underperformed. And with the Eternals, not only having the dubious honor of being the first Marvel Studios dropped the rotten status on reviewer advocate, several recent sequels,

including Ant-Man and the Waspantamia and the Marvels, they underperformed. And with Eternals, not only having the dubious honor of being the first Marvel Studios dropped, the rotten status on the review aggregator rotten tomatoes, but it also finished up its U.S. run with a disappointing 164 million, giving it the lowest domestic hall of any MCU set movie, aside from the 2008s The Incredible Hulk, which was 134, a sequel always seeming like a long shot, even though it was difficult to imagine that Kevin Feigey would simply decide to forget about these characters, and the rumors have persisted that a sequel was in the early planning stages. We're not sure how accurate those reports were, but Eternal 2, if it was going to, to happen. If it was in development, it's not anymore. During a recent interview with Kit Harrington,

who made his MCU debut as Dane Whitman in the movie, Variety confirmed that any plans that may have been in place for a sequel have been scrapped. It's not a surprise, especially given Feige's recent comments at San Diego Comic-Con, but does this mean that we won't be seeing Ceres, Thena, Kingo, and the others in live action form they are expected to appear in the Marvel Zombies animated series? We'd say at least some will show up down. the line, although they are not expected to appear in Secret Wars. Okay. So, what do we think about that?

Now, this is a weird one for me, because I think I'm one of the few people that enjoyed that movie. I like that movie. I do think it's a little unfair that, you know, when it's judged on the amount of money that it made domestically, that was like one of the first movies I saw in the theater as the pandemic was still a thing. and it was still, you know, keeping people out of the theater.

I remember seeing a press screening there and there was very limited people that still wanted to go and see it. So I definitely think that had to do with the box office for sure as where, you know, compared to the Marvels, which was the box office was flowing again and that people just didn't want to see it.

And I remember going to that one and everybody was walking around as usual. But The Eternals, I think, was a little different. It's a longer movie. It's a different kind of movie. It's not your, you're, you, pretty much could have taken away the fact that Marvel did it and he could have been a separate movie altogether and not even really feeling like minus the few references here and there it was

different and I think that's what I liked about it was different but I understand why you don't get a sequel on it too big of a risk and broken record Harlov here saying that if you were going to do it with a much smaller budget give it a shot problem is with that cast you just can't um they are going to mention some of the stuff that I guess mentioned at the very end of the movie is going to be tied in I guess to some of the X-Men or whatever but the other thing that was brought up with Kit Harrington's character I mean they put blade his voice in it they don't even know what the hell they're doing the blade so that makes sense where they're not going to tie that in together they had I think was that I think the Harry Stiles scene was at the end of that too

right I think so whatever the hell's going to happen with that it probably not thing. But it does see the difference between like that and the Hulk is that the Hulk kept on a chuglin, as Mark Ellis would say. It kept moving. Like the Hulk, the character of the Hulk just kept moving. He kept seeing it. He was everywhere. He was part of the MCU. He was a strong part of the MCU. He was very much used in the Avengers and other things. It seems like they're just going to leave these characters behind and pretend like it never happened. They figure, well, not enough people really saw it to really even ask questions, except the big thing sticking out of the planet that they're going to have to address. But other than that, we can leave everything pretty much alone.

We don't have to ever really talk about it because fans don't seem to really be asking questions. So, unfortunately, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I would like to see a sequel, but it's not like one of those things where I'm not going to, my good friend John Howie, who I say, I'm, I would not start a make Eternals to happen hashtag even though I liked it a lot I thought it was a good movie

I understand business wise not the best for the brand it's not the best for the brand is you can't do it because it's just from where they're going also in the time when they made that movie

they were still making movies and green lighting movies at that point where Marvel was indestructible well they're not anymore and they've got to take things very careful We have this whole conversation about it. And I'm continuing to talk about this when it comes to Marvel, is that they are in a phase right now

where they're coming off of a win with Deadpool and Wolverine. They need another win with Captain America, Brave New World. That is when everybody's eyes are going to be on that movie, from the people of Marvel to us, to people watching it, everybody. Because that's the one. That one delivers, then it's one-two. One of the last one-two punch they've had, it's been a little bit. where everybody's been on the same page.

Like, you're never going to get 100% of people on the same page, but 80%, 90% when it's that, and then it seems like the majority really dug it. That's what they need. And if they can do that, it could be a tough one here. It could be a tough one. If they do both Deadpool and Wolverine,

they got that, that's a win. And then if they nail, Brave New World, that's two. And then they got to hope the new one, Thunderbolts hit. Now, all three of those hit, leaning into Fantastic Four, then leading into the two Avengers movies, then they're going to be, then there's going to be a whole, a lot of different conversations

on this show and in other places. And it's not just a matter of the box office. I mean, because, look, Dr. Strange, too, had some pretty good box office. I think that was kind of the start of the decline. within the conversation with everybody like maybe they don't have it anymore and i know i mean you go outside of hardcore ramy fans and i don't know many people love that movie ramy if you're a ramy fan i guarantee you love that movie it's a ramy movie it's a it's a hardcore ramy movie i'll never

forget i took a friend of mine to to to see that movie with me ramy had he's like i loved it what did you think i'm like this okay but then they had a bunch of a lot of their movies Okay. So maybe they're going to pull it out. And we talked about the Channing Tatum, the Wesley Snipes side of it. And, you know, if you've been watching the show enough, you know my stance on it that I don't think that's where Marvel should be putting their attention to right now.

If they got these movies that they have to have deliver, then the Avengers movies, then they have to have those deliver. And then after that, I think the focus should be fantastic four movies and X-Men movies moving on. Stay in that zone. You should be in good shape. You start doing all these side movies, and then you do, oh, we're going to do Eternals, too. Now, we're going to do that.

We're going to make that happen. Why? Bummer, but why? Because I like seeing new different things, and that was new and different to me. And I liked what Chloe's out did with that movie. But where do you guys stand on that? Are you completely on the opposite? You say, no, I think this is a really stupid move.

They should have greenlit it. They should have put it into production. You're right. on their smaller budget, they can do it, people can take pay cuts, this needs to be told. I can't believe there's going to be a lot of people in the comments saying that, but I could be wrong. What do you think about anything else that I just said? Do you think that it's, you know, I'm on the mark here with what's going on with Marvel? Do you disagree? Do you think that they've been on track and this is all hoopla? You look at the box office and they did pretty

decent. Again, let's see what you say in the comment section. The box office in general is bounced back. May was a little rough. May had some Furiosa, and even though I think if didn't bomb, it certainly didn't do great. It started to bounce back with Inside Out 2 in June. And then you had that,

you had despicable meat. Obviously, Twisters did very well, and you have Deadpool and Wolverine, so it's been bouncing back. So I'm so curious to see as we talked about with Alien Romulus, scheduled to do around 50 million or whatever it's going to do this opening weekend.

It's also some pretty good reviews. The reviews are in for Alien Romulus, and this is Garth Franklin over Dark Horizons. The reviews are in for Alien Romulus. The reaction seems pretty good. 98 reviews, the film sits at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. 36 reviews counted. It's at a 63 out of 100 on Metacritic.

To put that in comparison, here's how the scores are alien in the alien saga. The first alien has the first alien, 93% rotten tomatoes. Aliens at 94%, alien 3 at 45%, alien resurrection at 56%, Prometheus at 73, Covenant at 65. So this nails in here at the third best, which I think is accurate. If I'm ranking them right now and recency bias is definitely a thing, I would say aliens, Alien Romulus is my third favor.

I would say out of the three. Again, recency bias is there, but that's what I'm sticking to. That's what I'm sticking to. That's what I'm sticking to. And it says that general consensus seems to be its best when it's. It's inventive and trying fresh stuff and a lot of praise for the practical effects in the atmosphere, but there's plenty of criticism of the callbacks and unoriginality. Ah, give me a break.

Also, one key character inclusion. That's such a critic note. I'm sorry. Also, one key character inclusion really upsets that some people and the third act is a divisive one. That I understand more so than that other stuff. Here's a sampling of reviews. The creatures remain among the most truly petrifying movie monsters in history, and the director leans hard into the sci-fi horror with a relentlessly paced entry that reminds us why they have haunted

our imaginations for decades. That's Rooney over at Hollywood Reporter. Agreed. Alvarez puts the horror first here with exquisite craftsmanship that immerses you in the insanity. Agreed, Megan Navarro, over bloody disgusting. This is closer to a grandly efficient greatest hits thrill ride, packaged like a video game. Yet, on that level, it's confidently spooky and generously shot and at times nerve-jangling piece of entertainment. Fair enough, from Owen Gle. Lieberman. An efficient addition to the 45-year-old franchise, Alien Romulus, draws on the strength of the sci-fi horror series without ever suggesting that the property's best days are ahead. That's Tim Greer's on screen. There's more and more and more. Let's see, the slime in the shadows

and the silences are back. Horror DNA is honored rather than pointlessly duplicated. This time, at least IP familiarity breeds contentment. Alonzo Duralde. Love Alonzo. I'm trying to think there's there's really not a lot of bad reviews here. I mean, this Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, says a technically competent piece of work, but no matter how ingenious, its references to the first film, it has to be said that there's a fundamental lack of originality here,

which makes it frustrating. Yeah, I don't agree with that at all. Because the problem is, if you, and I just disagree with that take, because the movie, there's been 87 of these movies, and the fact that, how do you make it you know everything about them

you know what they do you know that if they drip things out of their face the acid's going to go over there and burn stuff and they're going to be running around the place and face hugging you and all that shit so you know that's going to happen it's already been set up a million times can you direct it in a way where you're like

oh man I've seen it but I know it's still creepy and in my opinion Fedé Alvarez does that but at and I do think that the fact that it's an 80% on a franchise that some people could think is super tired, not only proves that this franchise isn't over, it also proves the fact that any franchise, any franchise that you think is dead, any franchise can be brought back to life with good directing, good writing, good acting, good take overall, and a way to bring it to screen that you care again. If you cared once

before, even though you feel that most, most times, the reason we feel that the franchise is dead, leave it alone, you can't do anything anymore with it. It's because it's been handled poorly time and time and time and time again. And I always bring up Terminator. Terminator has just been handled so poorly. The last few have just been so bad. And the stories have been so bad and they've been trying to take it into the because the disservice as much i love james cameron the disservice that terminator two did which people will obviously say is one of the is not the best terminator i i still love the first one love the second one but the first one's my favorite but i understand the argument of the second being everyone else's favorite but what that movie did is

it turned it away from a horror franchise or horror thriller science fiction like smaller movie and turned it into a big blockbuster action science fiction movie. So all the sequels following it, because that one was so successful, said, well, that's what we have to do, bigger. We got all these, CGI, all these different things. Boom, boom, boom, boom, huge. And Alien was kind of running down that course a couple times,

and Fedia Alvers brought it back to its roots. And it plays way more like Alien than it does aliens. I would like to see Terminator do that. to see a lot of these movies do that. And I think that there's tons of movies that can, you mention franchises. They can be brought, and not just with smaller budgets.

They can be brought back with better stories, better directing, better acting. All of them. And that TV, it's not an easy task, clearly. But when people say,

oh, this thing's dead, it's over, let it go, it's done for, they've done enough with it. They can't do anything more. It's bullshit. It's bullshit.

you can always make things work. You can. Not easy. In the same way with comedy, we talk about this all the time. Well, you shouldn't joke about that. It can't be done. A certain person can. Bill Burr can make things way funnier than you can

in a way that you'd probably offend somebody and get canceled on Twitter for where they try to go after him to do it, but then he'd come back with a funnier line that said, no, you can't do that to me because that's my point of view on it. And it was funny. A lot of people, I mean, but the same way that you give an alien movie to someone who's just looking for a paycheck doesn't really care as much.

Yeah, I'll direct an alien movie. Sure, what do you got to do? You got to do this. Okay, great, let's shoot it. Can I have $150 million to do it? I can. Okay, great, we'll do this, we'll do that. Sure, sure, this will be easy.

Yeah, it's fine. And then it turns out the crap. You give someone like a Feddy Alvarez who goes, no, no, no, we're going to go back to the roots of alien and do that. And that's why you're getting the positive responses. That's why I get frustrated sometimes with, I think that sometimes critics feel like they have to be, because it's my job, I've got to be overly critical. That's what I do.

I've got to like really go to the, it's not original. This is an original movie. Just because it's alien, it's part of a franchise, it takes original swings. The ending, I will say this. And there are going to be people, because I even went, I did a head scratch at the end. It's okay, it's creepy enough.

I'm on board with it. There's stuff that they're talking about with, the characters and things, I had no problem with it. But bring, the way that they looped it into the original franchise, I had no problem with it at all.

Actually thought it worked pretty well for the storytelling engine. But are you guys going to see this? You gonna go check out the movie? Comes out this weekend. It's probably out already at this point, right? Thursday. Probably come out tonight,

midnight show. So I'm very curious to see what you guys think. This is going to be an interesting, an interesting one. And I wonder if it's going to hit that 50-60. Roka and I will be talking about it on Monday in the live show for sure to see where we landed. Speaking of that, not only do we have that live show, Tuesday I'll be doing a single show by myself. Next Wednesday, Mike and Steph won't be here because I'm going to be, I'm going to have

to pre-tape some stuff, but I am going to be doing a fall movie preview with the former UFC Walterway champ of the world. Matt Sarah will be in studio and we're going to do a full fall movie preview next Wednesday. Thursday will be probably Brett and Roxy together. I might not be on the show on Thursday, but I'm going to see if Roxy can host. And then Friday we'll be back for Caps and Cals with the potential of Winston and Coy hosting by themselves. Potentially. That's what next week could look like. I'm going to miss the Crow screening. Some people are going to say maybe you're not missing much. I don't know. I haven't seen anything or heard anything about it yet. I'll probably have to go check that out. But it's going to be interesting.

week. But I have mentioned, and I'm going to mention again later on down the line, starting a movie watch series where I've done TV watch long as by myself, but I'm going to start bringing in some people, some childhood friends. My friend Alexandra, simply known as Alex, my friend Samantha, simply known as Sam, my friend Tina, Matt Sarah's going to do some with us, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to bring my wife in and do some too. And people are like, oh, oh, Roxie is right. No, this is a movie series that I've never done before. They're not, I mean, they might pop in on big thing here and there, but this is more so for like the movie watch series

that I'm going to be doing. I asked a ton of people in a community post to suggest movies. The beauty is that like these are all people who love movies, but life got in the way sometimes, and they haven't seen a lot of things. So there's going to be a lot of fun movies that maybe, you know, that I have seen, that they haven't seen, that I get to watch along with them.

And there's been a lot of suggestions. So can you guys, those who didn't, see the community post, suggest some movies, because I know right away, you know, like, well, I don't know what they've seen and what they haven't. Put in stuff. People put in, like, put in, like, you know, the original Star Wars. They put in Rocky. They put in, uh, Inception. They put in a bunch of things. And I don't know if they have seen it. I feel like, out of all of them, I feel like Tina, well, Matt Sarah's probably seen the most of the movies. Maybe not. Tina's seen a lot of stuff. Um, but I feel Sam has probably seen the least,

which is going to be great. And Sam's hilarious. If you remember, live, Sam used to call in and she's hilarious. So you're going to, I'm going to, I'm excited for you guys to meet the new peeps on the series and we're going to start doing more of them. I'm going to try to start debuting them in August. And if you watch them, we'll do more of them. But we've got to make sure you watch them. So at least tune in to a few of them to see if you like it. All right, that being said, another thing we've been doing a lot of of this channel lately are interviews. Well, I had a chance to interview Michael Emerson with Roxy Stryor, and we were so excited to get a chance to talk.

You know, guys, Roxy's a major lost head. I love Lost. Roxy's like a lost fanatic. So enjoy this interview with myself and Roxy talking to Michael Emerson. And before we do, I'm going to tell you about two of our wonderful sponsors. I'll tell you both about Liquid, IV, and, of course, Shadow Legends. Here you go. I was having a barbecue, the family, and I was going to go and went to pick up some games for the kids to play, and I was picking up cornhole. And while I was at the

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All right, so I have Roxy Stryer with me and it is the Thursday show. And Roxy, we had an opportunity last week. We talked to Nestor Carbonell from Shogun. one of your favorite all-time shows Lost. It was a great conversation. We absolutely loved them. And then right afterwards, I hit you up with an email. And I said, hey, how would you feel about doing another interview with Michael Emerson,

aka Ben Linus from Lost? I think I said, fuck yeah. I just love, like these two in particular, I couldn't. You made my day. It's like so cool. Also, for the people who don't know, I'm sure you put the pieces together. by this point Christian, but like I watched every episode of the show with my mom. This was like we were obsessed with loss.

And she actually got to see the ending of loss. It's one of the only shows that like. That's so great. That's so great. It's just like so means so much to me and I have so many memories around the show. So now that we're talking, this is in all the interviews you and I have done, I don't know that we've ever had a person from Moss on. I don't think so.

And that was the thing I promised you though. And I told you that when I was remember you were giving me crap about. about, well, you're going to do this. You're not going to be. I said, I promise you, you and I are going to start doing more interviews together. Didn't I not say that to you? Honestly, I can't even deny it, Christian.

We make, like, the best team. The interview team? Yes. We're a good duo. And like, and that's what people are worried about because we're in studio. And I said, the way the technology works now, as long as it looks good and it sounds good. Like this shot, I love this shot.

And that's so you can't, you can't actually see this shot. But I love this show. The guests can do it digitally too. And it looks better. We're all digital, too, I think. Yeah, I mean, and I think that, look, there's something that we'll be doing, I'll do some in-studio stuff and other things, too. But we're going to have Michael Emerson on in just a second here.

And we're going to talk about so many things he just finished up this show, evil for seasons of that. He was on Person of Interest forever. He did the episode of Fallout. There's going to be a spoiler for Fallout for people, by the way, if you haven't seen Fallout. So just make sure you prepare for that when we get to the Fallout portion of it. it. But he's just, and there's just so much. So I'm excited for people to see this and we should

just let him see it, right? I think that we should just let them see it, Christian. All right, everybody. So without any further ado, here is the interview with myself and Roxy and Michael Emerson. Here you go. As we just mentioned, myself and Roxy, look, man, we were, it's like a week ago, I'm talking to Nestor Carbonell and we were going over Lost and, And we were just talking about some amazing talent that was on that show. And you talk about amazing talent. Michael Emerson, whether you're talking about his, the run he just had on evil from the episode he did of fallout and the impact that he had. Of course, lost, person of interest.

I mean, the guy's career is just an incredible story. And he's just every time he pops up, you know you're in. in for something special. So when we were told that we were going to get him on this show, Roxy and I got very excited. So please, welcome to the show today, Michael Emerson. Michael, how are you, sir? Thank you for that most flattering introduction. I could listen to you all day. Well, it's, it is true. You should have heard the two of us kind of geeking out before you came on because it's just like, you just done such amazing stuff, Michael. I mean, from this, this show, the four seasons now you've done, evil, the finale was August.

August 8th. And tell me a little bit about that. How am I working on four seasons of that show and what that experience was like for you? It was good fun. I have to say, the writing is really good. I'm a guy who follows the good writing or I try to. So there was lots to play with. There's plenty for an actor to do with the sort of mind bending and interesting and humorous material that I've been given to play Leland Townsend. So I was very happy to be part of the Robert and Michelle King Repertory Theater Company on this one, and I'll follow them to the ends of the earth, I think. Do you have a ritual or what do you do come series finale time after being part of what is considered maybe one of the most divisive finales ever? I'm imagining that

finales feel different for you. I don't give them a whole lot of thought. I guess you're referring to lost, aren't you? One might think. One of my people's about the whole time, by the way. But I have to say, you can't just make a great ending. You know, long-running series, they rather dictate their own endings. And you have to kind of play by the rules that have been established in the course of the run of the show, which is, without getting into a lot of details, it's why I think the ending of loss was the right one and a good one, a good solid one, because it wasn't a device, it wasn't a reveal. It wasn't like, oh, my God, they were in purgathing. Well, of course they were in purgatory metaphorically for the entire length of the show.

So, you know, that's not, that's not what it is. And so the ending is, you know, a show that was, a show whose narrative was exploding in all directions is, is ended by bringing it all back to the center, coming back to first moments to origins. Yeah. And I thought they did that kind of perfectly. Yeah, I know. It's funny that you say that because I think that even when Roxy's bringing, just just in general when you talk about being part of all the amazing shows that you've been a part of.

And every time you do get to that part where the series ends, the season ends where, and I'm sure as a creator when you're performing, and you probably have certain ideas, like there's some things where you have, when you have your input on parts of the script and there's other times you don't. And so have you found that, though, whether it is person of interest, whether it is evil, lost, like where you get to the end, And, well, you just explained it pretty well with loss. But when you get to that point at the end when you're like, okay, I guess, you know,

that's my job. I'm going to finish up there. I wish it would have went the other way. Yeah, well, everything must come to an end. And if you don't have final episodes, that means you don't get to go on to any other fun projects. So it's kind of all right with me. I don't get, how do I want to say this?

I'm not over-invested. And my identity is not composed of a role that I'm playing at the moment. You know, I'm like a tradesman. I show up with a toolkit and I make things happen with the character I've been asked to play. And then, you know, it's up to people way above my pay grade to make the decision about whether things go on or not or how they go on. But sometimes I also feel like, and this is kind of an acting rule for me as well, that leave them wanting more rather than overstay, you're welcome. That's a kind of arts principle for me. So I'd rather do less or fewer.

Well, so let me ask you that then, because in regards, because this is the same thing as we were, as I mentioned in the intro, we were talking to Nestor last week. about how TV has changed so much in general with streaming and network. And one of the things that we had discussed with Lost is that it took so, because network television at that point when the show debuted in 2004, is that they did so many episodes. And at some point that the writers had even famously said, we didn't really necessarily know where they were going. As where it's streaming today,

you have like, you can be the benefit of having eight episodes, 12 episodes know exactly where, you know, you want to take. it. So have you seen that kind of shift for yourself in the streaming side of it, that it's easy to where you know a little bit more of where things can pan out now because it's not like this open-ed, 22 episodes that you have to try to fill things in? Yeah. I mean, we've come a long way, you know, from the days when they shot gun smoke, 36 episodes on cardboard sets, you know, that we just can't take it anymore. And I'm happy of the trend to shorter C-Smoat. It's okay with me.

It lets you do other things occasionally and maybe have a life at the same time. And I think it's a plus for whoever the creative people are that are involved, whether it's writers or performers, artisans and designers. It's you're not being pressed to, you know, come up with something that's any level, you know, 22 times in a given year. It's just, it's exhausting. So it's, I'm always kind of pleased to hear. I was pleased when Lost started to diminish the number of episodes. And I'm sure the writer's room was as well. You know, it brings, it brings some pressures with it, this whole deal of, okay, we've, we've promised publicly that we're going to wrap this popular series in 28 episodes or whatever it was that Damon

and Carlton announced at that time. But I thought, great, great. Give them an end date. Then we don't have to discuss that any longer. And now we'll get down to the business of making 28 or 26 or however many episodes, make them the best we possibly can. I like the leave them wanting more. I remember at the time when Lost had ended,

you did an interview where you were talking about, I think of Angeline Lilly and Matthew Fox, had said, like, we're done, we're never coming back. And you said something like, let's give it 10 years and reassess how everybody's feeling because you might want to venture back with a little bit of distance from loss to now. When you look back, are you feeling itchy to go back to lost? Or do you want to kind of keep it on the back burner? Oh, yeah, I don't spend any time thinking about going back to loss.

I don't see how that could happen. You know, I get it. I get it that it's a piece of intellectual property and that it's owned by, you know, whoever and that people can get the rights to it and do what they please with it. But you're talking about a tall order of what you're talking about a tall order of writing. Because you can't just, you can't go back and like, we're just going to go back and pick up at the end of season six and just continue. No, no, no, no, you can't do it. You're never going to get that cast.

you're never going to get you can't put it back in the bottle you can't make it be 2004 again yeah you can't get that cast you can't and i'm not even sure the storyline and the devices that were so fresh and inventive at that time i'm not sure they will still play so it would have to be something kind of new and off the wall and coming in from a completely different point of view or perspective with new characters and a new narrative. Yeah. I don't know what it would be. Yeah.

I mean, I'm sure, I think you said it, though, in there without really saying it, too. I'm sure that because it's a property that somebody owns, whether right or wrong or they crack, and I think eventually someone's going to say, well, now, you know, we can take somebody back to the island now, and whether that's good or bad, we'll find out when it eventually, if it does happen. But I did like what you were saying there, Michael, also, it's like you focus on what you're doing, you're brought in to do the job, and then it's like, okay, after I'm done with the job, I want to go on and I want to move to the next.

And you've done that brilliantly, the stuff that you've done, whether it's, I mean, the amount of stuff that you have been in, and you do seem to be in, like, the network space, right? There's a lot of these network shows that you continue to do, and that is, it's a, I mean, for an actor,

I would assume it's a heavy load with working in the network system. It is. I, you know, person of interest was an example of, of a sort of careful what you wish for kind of scenario because it was so many episodes every year. And not all of them were of the very best. Many of them were.

But it's a lot to write. It's a lot to perform. And even your cast and crew, they get tired after a while. So. Yeah. My Grammy would fight you on the fact that they weren't all the very best. It is sweet. And I know the show has, you know, serious fans.

Yeah, you said that your younger fans typically are lost people. Your older fans are person of interest people. Is that happening on the streets? Darylis that's the two demographics of the people who are coming up to you? Well, no, now the calendar has rolled over so many times that now it's young people whose parents watched lost are now watching lost, sometimes with their parents.

Right. You know, so I'm getting young, young, I'm getting all ages now. And I'm getting people that watched it 20 years ago and people who are just now watching it. Right. And that's what I meant beforehand with like how streaming has just changed the game so much with the people. Yeah.

Because, you know, it's funny about that as my, so my daughter's 12. And she's always looking for new things. and she, and I said to her that we were, the other day we were watching, she's watching Cobra Cye right now, she's obsessed with Cobra Cod. So I was, and I said, you know what, honey? I was like, you know what? And I said to my wife because we were both massive loss fans. I said, you know what

would be great as if she watched Lost? And my wife's like, that's a commitment. And I was like, it is. And I showed her the trailer and she's like, it looks really good, but it looks really intense for me right now and I want to watch Cobra Cod, but I want to watch Lost because I know her. She's like, I don't need a hyper fixation right now, but I'll get to it because it was.

It's just one of those things we were all kind of, you know, really locked into. But, and the shows that you've been working on the shows that you have been, and you have been doing some other great things, too, voiceover work. You've been doing it. Roxy and I were talking to how this, you've been doing a lot of stuff with D.C. You've been doing things with. Brainiac on my adventures of Superman. Yeah.

And then before, I loved you on Arrow as well. I'm hoping that you're D.C. camp all the way. Well, I was also a Joker. Yes. I know. Batman. animated and that's that's the other camp isn't it it is also decent well you've got you've got so you've got dc and you've done this have there have you had any meetings with james gunn since he you know

kind of took over and the stuff that he's doing have there been any conversations with uh with james gunn and dc i'm laughing because i don't know maybe there are actors that are more highly placed than i am that take meetings with those kinds of guys but i am not one of them i really i I'm not going to meet the writers of the shows I'm on. Much less like, hit steals or, you know, coming up with something at a cocktail party,

that is so not my life. That is crazy to me. That's crazy to me. Like, because we were just talking, before you came on, I said, you know,

you got to assume because that, that show and the stuff, like, whether it's, look, whether it's saw, whether it's lost, like,

but lost in general. What you did, you scared the shit out of people with that, but you were such, but it was such a lasting impression with what you did in the, the depth that you gave to Ben. But I always, there's so many fans of that show.

Now, whether it's somebody that you just meet on the street who's whatever, a restaurant, a laundromat, no matter where it is. And then there's somebody like a James Gunner, somebody else who's massive fans that I'm so surprised that you say that, that you're not,

that I would have put you in a DC movie or Marvel or Star Wars movie years ago. Well, you know, there may have been opportunities that came across the desk of my representatives at some time or another, but I was committed or, you know, sort of tied up

with a series. Because I've had, as you said, and I've been blessed to have a lot of long-running shows, or I get tied up for years. So some opportunities have passed me by. But, you know, it's okay because I seem to land on the shows I'm supposed to land on. And again, that's based on writing.

And what I mean by that is I get on shows where a careful speaker actor like myself can make a difference with the right kind of material. And I seem to end up, and maybe it's not even accidental, I seem to end up in those parts where it has to be where the way it's delivered makes a difference.

Yeah. I'm still with you though, Christian, that this is shocking to me because it's like you go back, you finish Lost and Rolling Stone Collider, every single TV line, CBR, IMDB, Entertainment Weekly, they all name you one of the top 10 villains of all time, of all time. So you finish that. And then you think right now, especially with the wave that we're in, with the comic book movies, Star Wars movies, Lord of the Ring, Harry Potter, the huge franchises, you think that you're just like the absolute first call to play a big bad in one of these franchises.

I know you're saying maybe things have passed you by, but there's still a whole future. Is that something that you would want to do, something you would like to work on, a big franchise? movie is a villain or are you like television is my jam? No, I've never had those kind of boundaries. I just kind of, you know, I just, all I can do is respond to the offers that come my way or the auditions that come my way. And, you know, some, you know, some things just haven't worked out yet. And then that's all right.

I have to say I'm not a passionate follower of super, Superhero material. Yeah. That's fair. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah, no, of course, of course. And then there's, and then there's also when it looks at that stuff and how it's amazing how those types of genres, whether it's the superhero genres like the video game genre where you just did Fallout, right?

So like, and with Fallout that the video game industry transferring over to film and television was very tough. And it was this year with Fallout and I guess previously with Last of Us that it was, a little bit more of a transition. That's a show that I would love to see you on as The Last of Us. I mean, you would fit in like a glove. Do you watch that show, Michael? I haven't seen it yet. Oh, you should. I think I've, it is the last of us. The Last of Us. It's with, it's a, it's on HBO and it's, oh, wait, wait. Yes, he's tracking with the, uh, with, with the girl who has the right DNA. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. And it's, there's, uh, sort of, uh, fungal zombie element. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

That's the one. That's the one. You would fit in, Roxy, am I wrong? You'd fit in a lot. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

And I think especially because we're clumping the last of us and fallout together because those were two of our favorite shows that were pretty close to each other. But I have to talk to you about Fallout because, okay, first of all, you did such an unbelievable job on that show, but your head is still in play. Your body is no longer there.

But your head. is still in play. The head goes on. The head goes on. But that's your head. I'm sure it looks a little different, but it's still your head. Are you thinking when you're watching, are you having any conversations? Are you thinking like my head's going to be making a ton of appearances?

I'm coming back to that show or where are you at with Fallout right now? I think I'm done. Done, done. I mean, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, the character's killed off. But then all of that contractual business. was settled before they knew it was a success or before they knew that they would do more seasons

and things. So, you know, just, you know, there's always flashbacks and parallel dimensions and voices from the past, you know, that kind of stuff. And they still have the heads somewhere in a box. It's hilarious. I mean, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, as you mentioned, whether it's the comic book stuff, not really your fort table. What is this stuff more so that you, not even as a performer, but someone, if you're going to go and you're going to watch a movie and you're going to go and you're going to kick back and you're going to watch a film,

what are you, what's your first go to? Are you picking out dramas? Who's some of your directors that you're watching? Any favorites that come to mind? I guess among my favorite directors are lots of foreign. great directors and I like to I have to say enjoy watching movies with people in them that I don't already know yeah you know so that you know it I'm not a person that will go to Tom Cruise's next movie or not to pick on him I know you're just like the the usual suspects not the movie but yeah yeah the

you know the A list regulars you know it takes a it takes a little more yeah is that for you because you can it's easier for you to disappear for the person that pops up because you don't know who they are and then you automatically just see them as the character and it's easy for you to do it that way as opposed to well that's Tom Cruise so I know that's Tom Cruise and I can't connect it the same way yeah yeah and and I it's better if I don't have like all kinds of historical and uh back catalog associated with people. It's more, it's kind of just better if they're all strangers. Yeah. That's got to be difficult because your wife is also a massive star. Does that mean that you're like, I can't watch your stuff. I know you. I can't see any of it.

Oh, no, no, no. We watch her stuff religiously. At our house, we watch it every time one of our shows airs, that's that's a family dinner party and then we have viewing after. And who's invited? We like that, you know, in-laws, nephews. And everybody watches with you. It doesn't make you uncomfortable when you're the star of the show and everybody's in there. Oh, no, no. It's because it's, it just makes it more fun. Because then, you know, people will laugh or make fun or scream or I can't believe you said that.

You know, it's, it's really a, it's really a party atmosphere. And we, we have a good time. Did you tell anybody that your head? head was getting chopped off in the fall. Did you let them figure that out for themselves? They, because my family is real itchy about spoilers. Yeah.

So I think we kept that. But, you know, the head, the head gets severed in the early going. Right. I mean, that's the end of the second episode. Yeah, yeah. And then they're done with me. And, but yeah, they, they all screamed when that, when that moment happened. And then they had to, they had to watch the head.

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Visit skyrizzi.com or call 1-866 Skyrizzi to learn more. And you're originally, but you live in New York now, yes? Yeah. Yes, myself as well. And then so, but you're originally where, you're not from New York originally though, or you moved there when you were younger? No, I grew up in a little farm town in Iowa. Oh, wow.

So how did you, and I guess that's, you know, the question I'm sure you've gotten time. How do you decide at one point that you want to leave Iowa and you want to go and you want to pursue this dream? I don't know. I was a kid who did a lot of reading and watched a lot of TV and loved the movies and I was not an athlete. So, you know, to sort of set myself apart and to have fun. Yeah. You know, I did I did drama club and speech and debate in high school and kind of got hooked on it then. Did you know, and did you know right away that you that whether I'm going to New York, I'm going to,

because I was assuming if you went to New York first, you're going because of the theater, theater scene i went i yeah i went i went i moved to new york when i got out of my undergrad program and i went to college in de moines iowa okay but i had a girlfriend that was moving to new york so i followed her there probably wasn't the best idea because i couldn't figure out how to get started okay i think it worked i think it worked out i worked other jobs yeah you know yeah um well you took a huge chunk break i guess at the time you didn't even consider it a break when you were an illuster before you came back. I've heard you talk about coming back and feeling like you were so grateful that you were in your 30s.

Your personality was already established so that you knew who you were. But was there one moment where you were like, I'm going to give this a go? Or was it kind of just a gradual, I can't let my dream pass me by? I think when another romantic entanglement took me to Florida and I was high and dry with bridge. is burnt. I didn't even have anybody to draw pictures for then. So it was odd job time, survival jobs. And I started doing community theater and I was good at it. And I thought, okay, but let's at least do the thing that feels good. Let's at least do the thing that suits our set of talents

and I've been sort of clawing my way back north ever since. So that's what you see you're in, so you're in Florida and then you go you wind up going back to New York after that or you go back or you hit L.A. after that? I went to, uh, I did,

I did a lot of theater in the southeast, going from town to town doing these non-union gigs. Yeah. You know. And eventually my friends in Jacksonville said you've done all you can do in northeast Florida you got to get up and out here you got to go work with you know people that are that take it more seriously and I eventually somebody referred me to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery which I'm going to

Saturday night to receive an alumni achievement award anyway it's where I got my master's that's great that's great and I went there thinking I could get off the survival job treadmill and work with the pros and sharpen up my tool kit. And I met Carrie at Alabama doing a production of Hamlet. She was a New Yorker. So when I graduated from Alabama, then I followed her to New York City. Interesting. Have you ever lived in LA? we had in the lost days when carrie was doing uh true blood we had a little house out there for seven or eight years but then are we when we stopped having any work on the west side of the

continent then we didn't know what to do with the house so eventually we we sold it yeah and now we're all east coast you just called you back there it seems like it seemed that that was It's similar that when I hear you tell these that you originally left to get to New York in the first place to follow a relationship, go to Florida, follow a relationship. You got lucky enough this time you follow relationship here now. This time it worked out. This time it worked out. It didn't work out instantly. I got up here.

I was, you know, I was in my early 40s. Yeah. And I got, you know, I was working retail and auditioning and doing every reading and working. that I could find, but I got, I lucked out. I got into a thing that got mounted in the village and the critics loved it and it ran for two years off Broadway and I've worked as an actor since then. Yes, I mean that, that journey alone because you say that because it didn't right away, so you go, when you go there and you, and does that work where, because having, having a wife who understands and is working, sometimes, I was just talking to somebody recently who's in this

business, not necessarily an actor, but in this business tour, and they're having this conversation with their significant other who's not in the business and doesn't really understand wants to support, but doesn't really the struggle doesn't get it all the way because not in it. But someone when you're, I guess,

girlfriend at the time, now wife is and you're struggling to get that gig, is there strain at that point? She's like, no, I get it. I understand. Keep going. Or is like, does it ever tear on the relationship a little bit? Because like the normal relationships do. I'm just curious because you're both performers if maybe there's more of an understanding there.

Yeah, it was it was never dangerous for us. It didn't go on for a long time. If you mean she's working and I'm not. Yeah, more so. Yeah, that didn't go on for too long. Look, I had given myself, because I, you know, I knew there was, it wasn't necessarily going to work out. Yeah.

But I thought, all right, I'll give New York a couple of years. if I can't work here, I'll go back south because I knew I could work down there, and she and I will figure things out. But fortunately, I got a break in New York City before the two years were off. So you're, okay, so you go ahead, Rox. Go ahead. Well, you have this beautiful quote. You said, no one who has a skill will remain unemployed their whole career.

The question is, can you wait long enough? And I love that because I think. that that's what a lot of people who are hanging on by a thread tell themselves. If you're talented, you're not going to be unemployed for 90 years. At some point, something will work. It's about just kind of like outlasting it all. When you decided to really give this a go and come back and you were like, okay, I'm really going to try this, was there a moment where you thought,

never mind, I'm going to bail on it again? Or from then on, did you just tell yourself, if I just hang in eventually, it will stick? No, I never thought about bailing. Well, I had all my eggs in this basket. There was no plan B. I've hardly ever had a plan B. And I certainly didn't this time out. So it was acting or nothing.

And I had had enough sort of personal. epiphanies, if you could call them that, when I was at grad school, I had come to understand that this was what I did best and that I was, and that I would never walk away from it. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. So with that comes a kind of confidence. You have the role when you do, and you're probably for two years and then when does it start to move into the television gigs and then how does that road start to like okay i'm confident now i'm feeling good like i stuck with it and now it's just it's just moving well if if there was a good answer to that question or an easy one it would be incredible i don't know how these things happen except you get seen yeah and

And then you get auditions sometimes. But it doesn't, one thing does not follow on the heels of another. For example, I played as serial killers, my first TV part on the practice. Which you won an Emmy for, so congratulations. So it was good, it was a good part. And so you think, wow, I guess I'm off to the races,

but not really. What followed was, predictably a bunch of offers to play serial killers. But none of them were near as good as that first one. So then I'm doing I'm doing theater regionally for quite a number of years before I got the call from Lost. They remembered me, I guess, from that show somehow. Wow.

So you got a call for an audition or did Lost call you for a direct offer because they had seen you in the practice? They called with it. They called with an offer. Oh, wow. That's amazing. I didn't know. Were you like, okay, now I'm going to just do this.

It's going to be a one-off because I know, obviously, you weren't going to be a regular at first. They were testing the waters with you. Yeah. Was the pressure on, you're thinking, I got to kill this so that I can be here for years to come or what's the thought process? No, it was kind of a low pressure affair. The offer was three episodes as a guest spot. So I thought, okay, it's wintertime in New York. It might be nice to be there for.

you know, five or six weeks. And so I went, but as it, as it worked out, it was some kind of test or working audition, if you will. And it's a test that I passed, apparently. I mean, it's a character actor's dream come true to be asked to do something small. And then they like what you do so much that they never let you go home. At that time, you did not know you were. going to be playing Benjamin Linus. You think you're playing Midwest balloon guy. Henry Gale. Henry Gale. When do you find out,

no, this is what we're doing? Well, they were loath to tell me. It was a long time. I did, I don't know how many episodes I did before it started to seem odd. Why am I still here? And, you know, but everybody's very closed mouth. that show is very script security conscious. So there was not a lot of talk. And certainly, you know, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't in conversations with the writer's room or anything like that. But I did once, just joking.

I went to the director of my, I don't know, it was my fourth or fifth episode. And I said, you know what would be really funny is if it turns out that I'm the leader of the others. Oh, wow. And the guy blamely. I think at me a couple of times and says, I can't discuss that with you.

That's incredible. What a fun story. So I thought, what's going on now? Then when do you realize that your idea is actually the direction they're going? Like, are you just delivered a script and it says Benjamin Linus and you're like, okay, here we go?

No, it happens, it happened more gradually than that. But the idea was in my head, ever since that conversation. And I saw it kind of coming at me. But, you know, I'm not, I'm a newcomer. I'm new to that family. I'm not pals with the cast or anything. I have no one to talk to or to share this speculation that I've stumbled upon.

So, you know, I'm just staying in my humble hotel room and waiting for the next script. And then it eventually does happen. Does that change, though, that dynamic where you do start to become, you know, more and more of a cast member and then the dynamic with the cast that's there? Does that relationship change with the people that have been there? Or were you just pretty much? Because you seem like I was going to also couple that question with the idea. You don't seem like someone that got caught up in the hype of the success of that show. I could see where there's a lot of people who did from talking to you so far just in the last 35 minutes or so.

You just seem like, no, it's the job. I'm excited that it's doing well. eventually it will end, but I'm having a great time doing what I'm doing. I'm not getting caught up. I have my family, and I'm going to go do my next thing when this is over. It seems that's who you are. But do you ever get caught up in that hype, and do you connect with those people on that show? No, as I say, I was a newcomer, and I had a healthy, look, when you're a guest actor,

a character actor like me, you just, there's a set of kind of, kind of, behaviors, manners, protocols that you employ. You go in, you keep your head down. You don't try to make fast friends on day one with big TV stars or anything like that. You just make sure you do your work right. Make sure that you don't cost the production any extra time or sweat about anything.

Know your lines. Come in, be pleasant, professional, all of that. So, but I also understood, and this was a time, when the narrative of Lost in the middle of season two was getting kind of fraught. And there were characters that were or were about to be disappear or be killed off or stuff like that. So I also sort of understood that this is not the kind of job

where you go to the Hawaiian Islands and buy a house. Right. Because it could be over tomorrow. But some people did. Correct. Okay, so something that you need to know about me as I venture into a couple questions to you is that I am a diehard loss fan. I watch 120 shows a year, so I'm a diehard TV fan, but television really sticks with me. And so I have a couple of questions for you that you might not remember the answer to, which is totally okay.

but one of them is that I remember you talking about when you were shooting when they were being so tight-lipped about things on loss and you were shooting the scene where John Locke ends up in a coffin that you guys didn't even know if it was going to be him because there was two dummies that you also shot that with. Who were the two other people that you shot that with that you guys thought might end up in the coffin? It was two other, it was two other regular characters on the, on the show that could plausibly have been the victim. But I can't remember, I can't remember who it was. And we shot, I mean, it seemed silly at the time. Are you kidding me? We're going to shoot this scene with three different actors just so that the company doesn't know. right but but you know

but then the actors who are shooting that are they feeling like oh my god is it going to be me they don't even know if it's themselves yeah i guess so i'm i feel like could soyer have been one of them that would be crazy but i can't yeah but you're right but whoever the others were it did not fool anyone in the inner circle, I have to say. Because to me,

the only one that made sense was Terry. I agree. And you could, if you were on the set that day, you could see which character got the most camera attention. So you guys kind of felt you had an understanding

without saying out loud. guys knew it was going to be Terry. Yeah. So I don't know who they were, they, they weren't protecting themselves from series regulars because by then we had so many rules and protocols in place. Like what? What were some of the rules that were, you know, the watermarked scripts, scripts that were, that didn't reproduce well. And, and, you know, flat rules about not sharing scripts with publicists, representatives,

management, and any of that stuff. It was all, because they had had, I think they had some problems with it before I was even there. People have become

so entitled about this show because 4-8, 15, 16, 23, 42, the smoke monster, what every single theory that people had and there was a lot

of open-ended stuff, I think it's ridiculous that people want all the answers. That's not what the show is meant to do. It's supposed to have you think about things and ask questions. But it is fun to theorize, which I'm sure you guys did on set. Did you have any crazy theories that you remember about the show where you just inside were like, this is what I think is happening with any of the open-ended questions? We spent a lot of time talking about this stuff, you know,

in between takes, and Jorge was always a great one for the theories. And they were always fairly plausible. Because we were on the show, we kind of had a feeling about what was a likely possibility and what was just too far out. So they were, I would say they were generally fairly close, not. Nothing really haywire. There may have been some of that I don't remember. Did you predict anything that you were like, yes, Michael, got that one?

Yeah, he did it. Ben Linus being the others. Well, yeah, I did. True. I predicted my own character arc. But beyond that, oh, and there was so much in the last season that was hard to figure out. Yeah. And so a lot of times we weren't trying to predict a thing.

We were just trying to figure out what it meant. This scene we're shooting today. What? Where are we? Is it real? No, is it future past another? Are we in a parallel dimension? Are we in the potential life that we could have had if, but then what went wrong?

Why are we now in the potential life and not in the lived life on the island? You know, it was a... Wow. So they really didn't give you any of that stuff to... And is that also to keep you guessing, or also maybe they didn't necessarily know? Well, I did not require those answers. You know, for me, and this is, I suppose lost is where I learned this habit, which is I don't care. what happened before or after or anywhere else i'm all i'm responsible is for this scene this

scene we're shooting this day and these lines and i need to make that work oh that's what i said that's why i i said about what i've kind of seen so far from talking to you where you're probably just like yeah i just got i'm focused on the work i'm done it so when loss finishes you're obviously grateful for the opportunity it brings forward other opportunities you're supposed to Were you supposed to do a show with Terry O'Quinn at one point, right? What happened there? Yeah, we made the rounds. You know, we sat in some executive office suites and pitched this idea that we had, which was a cute and a funny idea.

It was like, you know, because we had done so much combat on Lost, where no one was ever hurt that badly. and, you know, your wounds and bruises would heal by the next episode. We thought, let's tell the truth about that. We are men of a certain age, and if we get hit, we don't get up off the ground. We need help. Preach. And we, you know, we can't show our bloody bruised faces for weeks. So let's do a show about some hapless losers that are our age, and we're conmen, and we're going from town to town.

But we're bad con men. and we always get caught out and get our asses kicked and then have to limp onto some other town. I mean, that was sort of the gag to be the anti-lost heroes. So what happened with that one? So we got close, though, yeah? Yeah, but this is, you can't, you have to have something on paper. You have to have a script.

Yeah. And we had neither written any script. I couldn't write a script. I think Terry had dabbled in it some. But so they would, the studios would assign writers. But the writers couldn't help themselves. They always made, they always made the characters heroic again. That they had special powers, not superpowers, but they were good at things.

And that's not the vision you guys had. A little judo or something or, you know, something or they were just super clever. This is a good assignment. Someone out there has to write a spec script for this. If you get the good script, then you guys can reshop this because it's even better now. It's even better now for sure. We need new comedies. Yeah.

It's true. You've stayed in touch with Terry. You guys have a friendship. But I've also heard you speak about how afterwards, and today you've even mentioned it, after you shoot something, you are really on to the next. It's not like you can stay in touch with everybody you've ever worked with. Which cast altogether that you've been a part of has stayed the closest? Oh, my goodness.

Mostly we don't. I mean, you have friends. You have particular scene partners or friends that you're lucky enough to be able to survive the ending of the project, by which I mean people scattered to the four corners of the earth and doing other work with other actors.

So, you know, the fact that Terry and I, I still talk and we get together if we're in the same place. It's really nice and fortunate and unusual, I think. That's great. So, and then where you now have, well, I want to see what, because you had mentioned as far as being able sometimes to relax a little bit. After doing, being able to be in, you've been lucky enough, I'm fortunate enough to continue working from the stuff that you did, whether the amounts of episodes that you did for person of interest. So you just wrap four seasons of this show. You're doing voice work. Do you get a chance now because this was this and correct me, this was the series finale.

And so do you get a chance now to to chill out for a little bit, relax? Are you right on you looking for the next thing right now? No, I'm not a hungry guy. You know, I'm going to take some time off. Plus, Carrie has begun filming the second season of Elspeth. Oh, cool. And since she's Elspeth, she's every day from dawn to dark. You know, she's in every scene.

So I thought... Huh? You go to set ever? I went... Actually, I poked my head in yesterday because I was in the neighborhood and there's a lot of crew from evil that have gone over to Elspeth.

So I know people over there. The director of her present episode has directed on evil. So there was a lot of people to say hello to and that was nice, but I don't like to stay too long because I feel I'm a distraction and I'm in the way. And I think it's always good to get the hell out of there and let people work. That's fair. I mean, I do, I can, I love that I'm ready with this just from talking to you here and the idea of the way that you go after stuff and the way that you present yourself and go and just take your work.

The way that you take your work, I really do appreciate the approach to it. And I think that the idea that you're able to do that, and I'm sure you feel fortunate that you can take that break and chill. What's some of the stuff that you're going to do right now to relax? What does Michael Emerson do to kick back? Do you go on a little vacation? Do you take walks? Do you read books?

What do you do to chill out? Well, all of the above, I mean, there won't be much in the way of vacations because Kerry is working. But I do the stuff I ordinarily do. I mean, Carrie and I are like a tag team. We're like an acting couple. We are like one company, one team. And so if she's got a heavy load right now, I'm kind of happy to be the housekeeper.

I'm kind of happy to be at home a little more to receive the packages and walk the dog and, you know, make sure the house is in order, that there's, There's food in the fridge and, you know, look, look after her a little bit. I'm sure this is a complicated answer, but you guys have been together, I think, 25 years now. 30. Wow. And we see a lot of Hollywood couples not be able to figure out what you guys clearly have figured out. What's the secret? How are you guys doing this? Good fortune, I guess.

It helps that we met later in life, I guess. And I don't know, we've just had the right ground rules from the beginning. We were never competitive with one another. We were careful about some things, you know, never have the same agent, never have the same publicist, never set up a thing where you could feel like you weren't getting someone's full attention and your spouse was. That has never been an issue for us.

We support each other's work. We don't talk a lot of shop and we don't rehearse at home. You don't rehearse at home at all. We learn lines. I don't, I don't, it's not the way I work. I don't need someone at home to run the scene with.

I'll just, learn them solo. She likes that a little better, but she has other people that she rehearses scenes with. Smart, so that way you guys can just be present to each other and not. And it's great advice.

Michael, it was an absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure to talk to you. And I look forward to see, I know you're going to wind up popping into another one of my favorite things like tomorrow. I'm sure you're going to try to take a break. They're not going to let you. And James Gunn, James Gunn's watch.

James Gunn's guy. get you in the DC movie. I know it's I'm probably going to run into him on the street now. I'm sure you will. I'm sure we just we willed it to happen. The butterfly effect will cause that, I'm sure. But again, thank you so much. Congratulations on the four seasons of evil. Congratulations

on the entire run. Everything. And thank you for being here today with us. We truly do appreciate it. Thanks. It was really nice talking to both of you. I feel like this was a very grown-up conversation and it was fun. Thank you. Thank you. That is very, very,

cried ourselves on that. I will. Oh, you know, I would be mad at myself if I didn't ask before you left, too, because we did have, because as I mentioned to you, that Nestor Carbonell was on, was on the show, and he had nothing but glowing words for you and his experience working with you. You see him, what he just did was Shogun and how he was just nominated for that role. Fantastic. Right. I was going to ask you any words about Nestor before I let you go? I was blown away by that Portuguese, that multilingual Portuguese sailor that he played. He transformed himself. I thought, all right, there's a character actor after my own heart to make himself look different,

to have this outsized false staffian personality and do beautiful dialect work and stuff. I just, you know, it made me want to start. scream it was so good. Yeah, he was brilliant. It was fantastic. So hats off to him. Yeah. I think he's following in your Emmy footstep. I hope so. I hope so. All right, once again, Michael, thank you so much for joining us here today. We look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. All right. Thank you to all of our wonderful sponsors that you saw during those breaks.

And as I always mention, if you can, obviously get yourself something and want you to have something special, something wonderful. But I also put those links in there. If you click on the those links. You're like, I can't, I just can't financially. I can't do that. Fine, but you can click on the link. That helps. It helps out tremendously. Brows around. Take a look. All right. Rocks. We had on Michael Emerson. Was he everything that you wanted him to be? Yeah. It's like crazy to hear his voice, Christian, because you, like, he's scary. Then he's so nice and normal. So it's like, when you listen to him, it's like, oh my God. But then he just. Yeah, exactly.

What a cool dude. And what a normal, nice. I don't mean normal like he's not a massive star. I just mean. Yeah. Yeah. And then when we rapped, he was like, what did he say to us, Christian?

That was a very adult, great conversation. It's true. You look at us, you know, we're not expecting that. But, you know, it was a great conversation. And I learned so much about him in less than an hour. Because I could tell immediately, and I was kind of hinting at it when I was talking to him as you saw, why he's as successful as he is. He, and you can also tell that if he would have pressed them a little bit more, maybe would have gotten some stuff to where, you know,

it felt like there were people who probably took themselves a little too serious on loss. There's probably people who got caught up in all of it. He was not one of those people. Because it looks like, because the maturity in the life that he's had, he knew that that job would not be there necessarily tomorrow. It might be there tomorrow, but it won't be there the day after that and if it is it won't be there the day after that and there's an amazing moment where he's like that's why you don't go buy a house and hawaii say some people did and he said yeah huh i think he said i think he said correct he said correct which killed me um it was hilarious yeah but like he but then you know he talked i mean and then when he talked about the rules with his wife about why they're so

successful those things it's like yeah you can tell he's very like there's a reason why he knows there's certain things you got to do. And how he answered the question about when his wife was working, he wasn't, well, lucky enough, we didn't have to go through that that long, but we also knew they believed in each other, all those types of things. And he, you know, and he's clearly a guy who followed his heart. He followed the two relationships, one to New York, one to Florida, and then he got lucky and followed the one that worked back to New York again.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love that he said right now while she's on Elspeth, that he is happy to take care of the home. It's like men that, and. women who don't have this ego attached to being a star, which he is. He is a star. But he's like, all right, right now, she's Elspeth on Elzbeth. So that means that I got to do my shit. Yeah. Yeah. And but, but you know, it's and what's hilarious is that he clearly does not

see himself as a star. He sees himself like it to be as that that's the, that's the thing that people don't realize, right? When it's clearly comes to that acting as much as a job as, as anything else is a job. because to him that's his profession. It's what he does. It's his job. He goes, he's like, when people got to go to work, I go to work, I do this thing, and that's my job. So, no, I'm not any better than anybody else.

I'm not this. I'm not familiar. And he said, I don't take those types of meetings with those guys, which is still crazy to me. Crazy. I mean, if James Gunn, if you're watching this, give him a call. Yeah. I'm clipping out.

I'm going to clip it out and tag James Gun, by the way. Whether he watches it or not, I'm clipping that out. Well, I'm just shocked. Yeah. It's shocking. Yeah, how do you not put, not put Michael Emerson in everything? Everything. I mean, if I, if you are DC or Marvel or Star Wars, it's like, he's got to be on a short list for sure.

He's got to be on a short list of we need a big bad. Right. I know it's weird. I mean, but look, there's so many people out there that it's like, that's, that's also the job of his agent, you know? But think about, yeah, true. I was thinking that too, who I'm sure is great, but like, think about like Jean. Carlo Esposito after breaking bad that's like great great example great example I mean how much I mean maybe the answer is a lot but I can't imagine where's because I

would definitely not peg Michael Emerson as as he says as a comic book movie guy he's not he said it as much shit on him always it's like this not my thing yeah but how much is John Carlos Esposito maybe he is but maybe it doesn't seem like it is it's just the agent's got to pick up the call get my but what Michael Emerson also said he's been busy for the last how many years on person of interest for so many years. You know, he's like it seems like he's loyal to the shows he's on because he said, you know, some opportunities passed me by.

Yeah. I would have to venture a guess that he was offered certain things that he could not take unless he reneged his contract. So like, that is kind of cool. Yeah, I'm bummed that I didn't ask what. I don't think that he wanted to say. Yeah. And I also don't think, because the way he hinted at it at first was that he said,

all of I'm sure certain things popped up on the desk. Yep. And then, yeah, every time I thought about being like what. Yeah. You know, I only, I think that you only want to nail down somebody to make them say something if you think that they're a jackass. Right. I'm not trying to get in trouble.

And clearly he didn't want to say the answer. He would have just given it up. The only thing I really am so happy, though, that I've nailed that I was like, okay, Sawyer, man. They filmed Sawyer. in the coffin? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to be kidding me.

He thinks. He doesn't necessarily remember what he thinks. But like I remember him saying there were three people that they shot it. Imagine being one of those three people. You're Josh Holloway. You're getting in the coffin. I know. And you think you're for any, yeah, I think it's over.

Yeah, so either way, it was a really fun conversation. I really like talking to that guy a lot. I would, I would like him. I'm hoping because maybe, you know, as we start doing this more and he does get something else too, and we can get, like to get him in. studio. I mean, we can get you in studio, too. So we'll do the, we'll do the old school thing. But we have a lot of cool things coming up, a lot of interviews. That was one for sure. I got Jennifer Esposito coming in studio. Did I tell you that?

No, you didn't tell me that. Wow, Christian, you're booking math, like great guests. Yeah, she's coming in a studio. She's got a movie coming out. I'm working on some other ones that could be pretty fun. So there's, there's stuff. And we have that Clips Channel. The Clips Channel's doing. It's doing pretty good. We had, we had the Robert, Cliler clips really took off. There's one clip that did like over 250,000. There's a couple of the, MIR from Impractical Jokers clips that took off. There's a few David Castanita clips that took off. Nester's used to going viral, so I'm sure that that's... I'm sure. Nestor's going up soon, all those clips. So that will go up. I'm going to put in some old Amber Midthunder stuff up there.

There's Diego Luna clips up there. So there's tons of stuff up there. And then obviously the Michael Emerson clips will go up as well. you put it in this description put what in the description the that channel i i did i did for a bit and then i forgot to so i i was looking for it the other day and i was like i had to type in a bunch of things to youtube i'll put it it'll be the first thing as you see in this i'm going to keep doing that as the first thing you see i keep forgetting everybody to go subscribe there everybody should yeah yeah yeah i tell them all the time they need to subscribe that one is very important to subscribe to because of all the stuff that we have with all the interviews we got going on and we have a

shorts and everything. That's the it spot. That's it. So there's no TV picks this week. We'll be back next week for TV picks. We had to do this. We did the interview today. I think we should watch Lost,

fallout, person of interest, evil. Well said. Well said. Correct. The practice. Yeah, yeah, good. Roxy, where can they find you? Everywhere at Roxy Stryor.

It's pretty easy. And for me, you can find me here every day, Monday through Friday. I have out of the theater reactions for Alien Rocks. I have the movie review, non-spoiler for Romulus. I'm going to, I made an announcement that I'm going to be doing movie reactions. I got three new people for you to meet and they're not going to be on the big thing, Roxy. See?

I told you. I told you. Are you seeing the comments on that post? The new one? Yeah. No, what were the comments? Read some of them. This is the day Roxy feared.

A single tear just rolled down Roxy's cheek somewhere. Roxy looking at this while Sound of Silence is playing. in the background. But do you feel that way? Do you see me crying? No. Because you understand. So the big thing is not doing.

I knew. Yeah. So I said it. But also you said, no, no, no. You said you were going to be replaced. I think I'm going to be replaced. Especially now? But here's my best shot at it.

Yeah. Is being awesome at my job. Oh. Or to keep getting interviews. That's the awesome of my job. Yeah. There's nobody else I could really do the interviews with. So you're pretty.

That's all. only security that I have. That's true. You're right. So, you know, just got to keep performing there. I love, I love Brett to death, but I wouldn't, to his own, to his own admittance, I guess. Oh my God. What would Brett have asked Michael Emerson? Nothing. He wouldn't

and Brett, Brett would tell you the same. Brett, Brett was actually sat on two interviews with me. Katie and Freddie Prince Jr. were the two that he sat on. And he, you know, when he fires his lines out, hilarious. But,

But he's not asking a lot of questions. That would have been amazing. I don't know what Michael Emerson would have made it, Brett. I just don't think Brett probably, on virtual, Brett probably just would have sat there. And he probably wouldn't have made any jokes because he probably wouldn't have known to chime in. So that's what Brett said it himself. He's like, I don't, I'm not doing those. He said it done some of him.

But he could have done Sam Morrell? Maybe. Sam, Sam didn't really come off like he wanted to play as much. It took him a little bit. It took him a little bit. You came in with a question. He was like, I don't consider him. myself that way and it was like okay so he warmed up he warmed up oh 100% but just if that had happened

you as a professional interviewer was like all right cool I'm gonna know how to pivot yeah Brett would have shot yeah yeah yeah and he says as much too when we talked to him about it but anyway um we have more stuff and I'm glad that you guys are watching what I have been doing is making sure that I'm opening up the episodes with topics that you guys want to hear about the normal movies stories too because I know some people go I don't necessarily know about the interview e but if it's in a movie story thing that I'm already paying attention to. I'll stick around for it. And that has definitely proven to be true. We did that with both Nestor and David Castaneda and that both it worked. So you guys have been watching them, checking them out, been saying very kind things.

And that's it. So well, once we have some more people, we have some more people coming up. And that's it. Thank you to Roxy. Thank you to you guys. See you on the flip side. Bye-bye.