Читать книгу Blood Brothers - Amy Rickman - Страница 10
ОглавлениеDamon: This town needs a bit of a wake-up call, don’t you think? (1.02, ‘The Night of the Comet’)
Ian was being picky. He wanted a major role, but he didn’t want to do just any old movie or television show that came along. Yet when Brenda Netzberger, his manager, called, desperate to show him a script, he knew better than to dismiss her opinion – they had been working together for too long for that. ‘I actually didn’t want to read pilots,’ said Ian on a Friday Five, ‘but my manager told me that she was sending a few pages from a pilot and that I should look at the director and the location. Upon following the instructions from her, I immediately called her after seeing that it was J.J. Abrams and it shot in Hawaii!’
For Ian, the decision was made before he had even properly found out about the role. J.J. (Jeffrey Jacob) Abrams had a great track record with television shows (before Lost, he worked on Felicity and Alias) and an incredible reputation in Hollywood as the hottest young director, writer and producer on the scene. Ian headed out straightaway to meet with him and the other executive producers.
It was a rigorous process but a relatively straightforward one for Ian. He filmed a few audition scenes in front of a camera, which were then viewed by the network and studio for approval. Luckily, right from the beginning J.J. believed in him. Ian described a particular moment in the audition process on his website:
In a screening room that resembles a small theatre at ABC (and trust me, a network test is a very intense room to be in) the silence was perfect so that concentration was never broken. By that time J.J. and myself had been in several meetings together for the role with Damon [Lindelof, executive producer] so those guys were on my team, my champions on the project, so needless to say that trust and comfort yields a fearlessness in you that allows you to live an organic moment in an artificial environment.
The last part of the test was the scene with Boone and Sawyer (was never put into the final draft of the pilot) in which Boone was digging for something in the sand while Sawyer sat smoking (of course) watching Boone only to make some smart-ass comment (of course) while Boone calmly and articulately put Sawyer in his place.
I’ll never forget, when that scene was done I literally thought that I was on a beach somewhere talking to this guy and upon realizing that it was indeed a room; there was more silence. I looked up at J.J. and he simply said to the executives behind him – ‘As I live and breathe, ladies and gentlemen, Ian Somerhalder.’
For that one moment and many, many more that followed, I thank you, Mr. Abrams.
With that stellar audition, Ian was the first actor to be announced on the cast of Lost in early 2004 – as Boone Carlyle. The character really intrigued him: Boone was part of the original group of survivors from the middle section of the plane, alongside main characters Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Locke (among others). Before the crash he had been a wealthy young man, whose mother owned a wedding company. Boone became the chief operating officer of his mother’s company when he turned twenty; he also had a stepsister named Shannon, whom he had romantic feelings towards, and he was very protective of her. His character was described in a USA Today profile as ‘a callow young man who had been toughened by island challenges.’ Boone was also incredibly vain, so much so that his sister sarcastically labels him: ‘God’s Friggin’ Gift to Humanity’ (that could be accurately used to describe Ian as well, though not in a sarcastic way!).
Ready to take on the challenge, Ian flew out to Hawaii in March, 2004 and watched as the cast grew and began to draw in more big-name stars and attractive unknowns with oodles of potential. One actor he immediately clicked with was Dominic Monaghan, who was cast as Charlie. Monaghan was riding high after successfully starring in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films as the hobbit, Merry. Ian chatted with him about his experience on The Lord of the Rings’ set, especially as he himself had actually auditioned for a part in the hit movies: ‘Few people know that, but I auditioned for the role of Legolas,’ he told Séries magazine in France. ‘Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. Orlando Bloom was stronger than me on this! [laughs] When Dominic tells me about the wonderful experience he’s had on the set, I regret that I didn’t get the role but in this job, we can’t win first prize all the time.’
He also got on really well with his on-screen sister, Shannon, played by Maggie Grace. Ian described her as: ‘hateable in Lost, but really she’s the sweetest, most adorable thing on the planet.’ Immediately rumours started to fly that the two were dating, but both denied it.
However, the person on-set that Ian got along with best was also the one he truly envied. That person was Josh Holloway, otherwise known as James ‘Sawyer’ Ford. Like almost every other male member of the cast, Ian had originally wanted to play the part of bad-boy Sawyer. ‘I was always so envious of Josh Holloway on Lost because he always gets to say the cool stuff. And it’s always so fun to watch, even if it’s someone you don’t necessarily like, you still want to hear what they have to say and the way they say it. They truly mean what they’re saying, even if it’s demented and wrong.’
Even now, long after Ian’s time on Lost has ended, he and Josh have remained good friends. They have even gone shopping together, with Ian helping his friend to pick out a post-pregnancy gift for his wife: ‘Ian helped me pick out chick shoes and we ended up getting tanked and having a blast,’ Josh told TV Guide. Ian picked up the story: ‘Just imagine me and Josh, two macho dudes, after a couple bottles of wine, walking through Nordstrom’s shoe department, discussing the types of heels, toes and colour.’
Despite being located on the beautiful, sun-soaked islands of Hawaii, the shooting was tough. ‘It was really intense,’ Ian revealed to TV Mania. ‘You’re covered in bug spray and dirt and make-up, and it’s 95 degrees with no wind, and you’re on a beach surrounded by fire. By the end of the episode, you would have to go home and get scrubbed. But I love Hawaii. I will absolutely live there some day.’
He was having the time of his life on the show, featuring in 19 episodes in total – the longest job of his career thus far. And he was paid well too, between $20,000–$40,000 an episode. Yet it was to end all too soon for him. During some rare time off, he went on holiday in California’s wine region to relax with his non-Lost friends, drink good wine and generally take a welcome break from the intensity of the set, but his tranquility was to be broken by a phone call informing him of some truly tragic news: Boone was to die in the next episode. ‘[It was] pretty devastating… Thank God I already had four glasses of really good Pinot in me,’ said Ian.
The news seemed to come completely out of the blue for him as he was actually in the midst of searching for a permanent base in Hawaii: ‘I almost bought a house there but, two days before I was going to fly back to look at one, I found out that my character was being killed off.’
He flew back to film and was less than thrilled about it: the death scene involved him falling off a cliff while inside a small aircraft which had crash-landed on the island sometime before their airplane had done the same. Boone sustains massive internal injuries from the fall, including a collapsed lung. Resident Island doctor Jack (played by Matthew Fox) attempts to save him by giving him a blood transfusion-by-sea urchin. If that sounds painful, Ian can definitely confirm that it was: ‘I was spacey and nauseous and a little pissed,’ he told Entertainment Weekly. ‘It’s hard walking a fine line between lucid and not lucid while Matthew Fox is ramming a needle into my chest.’ It was, in his words, ‘a long and exacerbating day simply because of the content and emotion, I’ll be the first to say. Matt Fox and I (but especially him) went through the wringer that day. I couldn’t wait to get it done but wanted to pay extremely close attention to the way in which that scene played out … We had a medical technician there to guide me in the right direction of how a human would react physically to those types of injuries; spanning from the collapsing of a lung to the moment of lucidity before someone dies. We got through but I think of it much.’
Boone’s demise was in Ian’s twentieth episode, called ‘Do No Harm’, which aired on 6 April 2005. His character’s final words were ‘Tell Shannon I…’
From the point of view of the Lost producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof – who had supported Ian so strongly in the beginning – it was absolutely necessary for Boone to die. Already they had almost killed several characters in the first season (Boone’s sister Shannon among them), but they needed to give the show some gravitas and up the stakes by proving to the audience that no one was truly safe. ‘It was a narrative imperative that we kill Boone,’ executive producer Carlton Cuse told Entertainment Weekly. ‘It sets in motion a chain of events leading to the season finale.’ Boone’s death enabled the conflict to develop between Jack and another character, Locke (played by Terry O’Quinn), which would be pivotal to the entire series.
Still, it was of little consolation to Ian, who felt as if he had been flung upside down on an emotional roller coaster. He was hurt but also grateful, sad but accepting, too – after all, on a show as new and experimental as Lost something had to give. He just didn’t quite understand why it had to be him.
His character’s death wasn’t the end of his association with Lost, though. He appeared in 10 episodes after his death, coming back in Shannon’s flashbacks over the course of a few episodes in Season Two and then he was back for the series finale in 2010.
He had to give credit to Lost, too – it had boosted his profile immensely. So much so that he discovered he had fans in some very strange places: ‘I’ve got a lot of letters from prison. Lost was a big prison show but it’s really crazy when you get the letter that says, “So, I’m getting out in three months, I’ve only been in for 17 years and I’d really like to meet you.”’ That must be pretty creepy for Ian!
In between appearances in Season One and the final Season Six, Ian didn’t really watch the programme: ‘When I left that show I needed to get on [with] my life. I wasn’t going to just sit and watch every single episode that they were producing; it was very bittersweet. And now, going back, I haven’t had time to watch five seasons of Lost. I wish I had, but it’s just not the case. I know they’re doing phenomenal work and what I have seen, it’s like no other television show.’ But that didn’t mean to say he wasn’t extremely grateful to have been a part of it, calling his year on the show the ‘greatest experience of the greatest year of my life.’ He was completely in awe of the work that J.J. Abrams and the rest of the Lost cast were doing – though understandably disappointed that he hadn’t been able to be part of the magic for longer.
When he received the script for the finale, he was amazed: ‘[it] weighed about three pounds!’ It was great fun for him to come back onto the show, albeit briefly, and he has great memories of his time on the beach: ‘[I loved] everything from being on a set with those phenomenally talented actors to watching rainstorms come, to looking at a 767 that’s completely torn apart on this deserted beach in the middle of nowhere to being a part of one of the most amazing, historic television shows ever made. I wish I had stayed on the show, but it all works out the way it does. To be able to go back there and have that experience, with all of those people whom I’ve known for so long, and to have Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse still want me around, was a really, really cool experience.’
