Watching Lost

TV Guide Magazine has the latest on Lost, with the introduction of four new characters this season…

KEN LEUNG “Miles”:
Lost executive pro­ducers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse created the role of Miles specifically for New York City native Ken Leung after catching his live-wire performance as Uncle Junior’s unstable protégé in The Sopranos last year. Before signing on to the super-secret ABC series, though, the actor — who also played the porcupine-esque Kid Omega in X-Men: The Last Stand — called up Cuse and attempted to pry some info out of him. “After our conversation,” Leung admits, “I was still more or less blind.” Allow us to fine-tune the picture: Miles, like The Sopranos’ Carter, is a hothead, but he’s a uniquely gifted one. “He’s after something he can get on the island,” Leung reveals. “Or somebody.” The part has proven easy in one respect. “Miles doesn’t know how to be social, which is great,” Leung says, “because I don’t know how to be social.”

REBECCA MADER “Charlotte”:
Lost’s lone new girl, Rebecca Mader, wants to be treated like one of the boys. “People see me as a girlie-girl because I’m always in full-on hair, make­up and heels in everything I do,” groans the actress, who made fashionable appearances in The Devil Wears Prada and Fox’s short-lived 2006 series Justice. “I was sick of it. I have this tomboy side, and I really wanted to do action stuff.” Wish granted: One of Mader’s first Lost scenes found her hanging upside down from a tree. “I was so happy!” she ex­claims. Likewise, her character, Charlotte — who was changed from American to British after producers met the English-born actress — is thrilled about her arrival on the island. Maybe too thrilled. Could Charlotte prove to be nefarious? “Tune in, baby,” Mader says with a laugh. “It’s gonna be good!”

JEFF FAHEY “Lapidus”:
Jeff Fahey hadn’t seen one episode of Lost before landing on the Emmy-winning drama. But that’s because the veteran actor (The Lawnmower Man and the ’90s series The Marshal) had taken a hiatus from Hollywood to work with orphanages in Afghani­stan. While it’s a pursuit the soft-spoken Fahey is passionate about, it’s not one he’s particularly eager to expound upon: “I don’t want [it] to take focus from the show.” He’s chattier about play­ing bushy-bearded Lapidus, the pilot of the heli­copter responsible for bringing the freighter folks to the island. “It’s a dream job,” he says, “especially for someone who’s been kicking around so long.” And an experience, Fahey claims, that really isn’t so different from his recent off-screen endeavors. “It’s fascinating to go from Kabul to living in Waikiki,” he admits. “But they’re all just part of the journey.”

JEREMY DAVIES “Faraday”:
With the twitchy delivery of one line — “Rescuing your people, can’t really say it’s our primary objective” — Jeremy Davies manages to send chills down the spines of the survivors of Flight 815 and viewers. The film actor (Saving Private Ryan) has a way with words off screen as well. Take his self-deprecating explanation for joining the show: “The creators of Lost are endowed with some seriously certified, god-size talent. For a misfit like me, an offer to make coffee for those gentlemen is one I’d find terribly difficult to pass up.” Fortunately, producers instead asked Davies to play the mysteriously troubled, intensely intelligent Faraday, who has a proclivity for both island experiments and mumbling. It’s a character Davies, who studies quantum physics for fun, has embraced. “Faraday may be contending with a seis­mic metamorphosis under the surface. How’s that for enigmatic?”

Lost, Lost Season 4, Lost new characters