CusickGallery.net: Henry Ian Cusick

Thanks for the delightful read, Rick!

Lost star Henry Ian Cusick: I now feel like I’m part of television history

And although he’s got a two episode guest role in Law & Order SVU, he’s not wanting to jump into something too big or too long which won’t compare to the fun and adventure he had in one of the most talked about shows of the past decade.

He said: “I’ve learned that this experience is a one-off, and it won’t happen again.

“I’m sad to see it end because it’s been such a beautiful experience. I feel like I’m part of television history.”

Lost began on September 2, 2004 (in the UK it debuted in August 2005) with the most expensive opening episode in television history. Its two-part episode cost an estimated $12million, compared to the usual budget of an hour-long American telly pilot of $4million.

The stunning aeroplane crash on a mysterious desert island immediately had people hooked as each series gave us further twists and turns with time-travelling and even a storyline involving the passengers if the plane hadn’t crashed.

Well-loved and confusing, leaving as many questions as it answered, Henry’s Desmond was one of the key characters of the series which managed 121 episodes and also starred Matthew Fox (Jack), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Naveen Andrews (Sayid) and Terry O’Quinn (John Locke).

At first, Desmond was an enigma, frantically pressing numbers into a computer to stop something happening on the island and, by the end, he nearly did destroy the island that had become home to the crash survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.

Now the all-encompassing job that has been part of him for the past five years has finished, it’s little wonder Henry is taking stock.

“I miss it greatly,” the actor admitted with a huge sigh. “And I was very nervous when it finished because I didn’t know what was going to happen.

“All of the cast members miss the show but that’s the way it is. That’s life.

“We all knew it was going to come to an end and we knew this for quite a while, so we all started to look forward to the next challenge in our lives.

“Lost was the longest job I’ve ever had and I’m certainly in a better position than I was five years ago before my Lost experience started.

“You never know what’s around the corner – and you never know if it’s going to be good or bad.”

Henry never imagined he’d end up in a programme that will be long remembered. Born in Peru to a Peruvian mum and Scottish father, Henry moved to Paisley at the age of 15 and became an actor starting his professional life at Glasgow’s famous Citizens Theatre.

Like most Scottish actors, he started life in Taggart playing Ian Gowrie in 1993 and his career bobbed along.

He worked on nine episodes of Casualty as Jason, a further nine episodes as Dr Talbot in Two Thousands Acres Of Sky alongside Michelle Collins, The Book Group, Midsomer Murders and Waking The Dead.

Luck then played its part. While staying with his Scots actor friend Brian Cox, Henry met the Manhunter and X2 actor’s next-door neighbour Carlton Cuse, the executive producer of Lost who signed him up for series two .

At first, it was only meant to be three episodes but Henry’s rugged good looks and adventurer’s flair hit the mark and the storywriters fleshed out Desmond’s story.

He even had the series’ best catchphrase, “See you in another life, brotha”, which he is asked to repeat constantly by fans.

Many of Lost’s characters were named after famous figures including Desmond, who was named after David Hume, the Scottish 18th Century philosopher and historian regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and a keystone in The Scottish Enlightenment.

“Have I read Hume?” Henry revealed: “I’d never heard of the author Hume until this character came along.

“I Googled him but that’s all I did. I didn’t take it any further. I didn’t think it was going to help me or help my performance, so I left it at that.”

Many fans wondered if the writers made up the series as they were going along. For every answered twist there were three new turns or plot jumps to keep viewers continually confused.

Even Herny admitted he didn’t know what Desmond was going to do next.

He said: “It could be frustrating because you’d think your storyline was going one way but, all of a sudden, it’s turned on its head and it’s not going there at all.

“You think to yourself, ‘I want it to go that way.’ But, no, this is what the script says and you have to follow it.”

At first, Henry thought Desmond was a doctor because he’d said he’d fixed Jack’s ankle.

“Then I found out he was a soldier and then a monk,” he laughed.

“Every time I got a script, I’d say to myself, ‘Where is this going?’

“I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen next – even in the final season. You just had to read the script and do what it said on the page.”

Five years from the luckiest break of his career, Henry is still happily living in Hawaii, where the series was made, with wife and their three sons Elias, Lucas and Esau.

He admitted he misses Scotland but don’t get his tea oot any time soon.

“I miss my family back home and I miss the humour of Scotland but I’m not moving back.

“I’m on a beautiful island with my lovely family – and we’re going to stay for as long as we can.”

Not that we blame him. He has some of the world’s most beautiful beaches close at hand. He surfs. He swims. He even manages to play football and watch his team Dundee United.

“I always keep an eye on what’s going on with them,” he revealed. What he and his young family don’t do is watch telly – surprising for someone who is living in Hawaii because of it.

But he argued: “We left England (he was based in Kent at the time) to move to Hawaii for the show – but England is a culture based around television because there are a lot of dark nights in the winter.

“You come home from school and the TV is on, you have dinner and then you go back to watch TV.

“To be honest, I was getting sick of it.

“When we came to Hawaii, I said to the family, ‘There’s a wonderful beach out there and there’s a great swimming pool. We have amazing weather, so we’re not going to switch on the television all the time.’

“After two months, the kids were fine with that. They grumbled to begin with but then they said, ‘Fine, we don’t mind if we don’t have much TV. That’s OK with us.'”

You can almost hear him stretch with contentedness.

“I wake up every day with a smile on my face,” he admitted.

Clearly, money isn’t too much of a factor just yet but he must be thinking about his next job.

The Law & Order cameo is only a couple of episodes.

“I’m waiting to see what comes up but I’m keeping my options open,” admitted Henry without apology.

“I have been offered a few projects but I’ve not found anything that I want to do yet.

“I read a lot of scripts,but nothing has made me think, ‘Oh my God, I must do that.'”

After being on big telly shows many actors try and make the big jump into films.

But, for every Jennifer Aniston, Jim Carrey or Ricky Gervais, there’s a Matthew Perry, David Caruso or Kelly Brook.

“I have been approached to do a couple of movies,” admitted Henry.

“But nothing has stood out for me.

“I usually read them and go, ‘Wow, that really is awful – but it’s a lot of money.’

“I was offered some love and drama movies but I turned them down.

“In an ideal world, I’d love to work on something that is on par with Lost or better than Lost.

“But the writing was so good on the show that I think it’s going to be tricky to get anything with a similar quality.

“It’s tough but we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

“Something new, exciting and different will turn up soon enough.”

As he leaves to go for a swim on one of those incredible golden Hawaiian beaches and continues his laid-back life, would he really want anything to turn up too soon?

Lost The Final Season on Blu-ray and DVD and Lost The Complete Season Box Set are both out this week.

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