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The Josh Holloway Interview: On Sawyer, Lost, and the Polar Bear | Vanity Fair
Quote:
By Jim Windolf May 21, 2010, 4:05 PM
Courtesy of American Broadcasting Corporation.Josh Holloway, who has played James "Sawyer" Ford across six seasons of Lost, made it alive through the penultimate episode. Whether his character will survive all the way to the end of Sunday night's big finale, or will be made, by the show's writers, to pay for his character's many sins, is anyone's guess. I'm betting it's so long, Sawyer, both on the island and in sideways world.
Holloway has been a key cast member from the very start, lighting up the small screen with his charming wise-assery from the J.J. Abrams-directed pilot onward. In the show's early years, he was the perfect foil to the more sensible and heroic Dr. Jack Shephard, played by Matthew Fox, and he was just right as the bad boy in the ongoing Kate-Jack-Sawyer love triangle. Later on, Sawyer had a domestic phase, as the contented partner to Elizabeth Mitchell's Juliet character, before returning to his angry-goofball-con-man roots.
To read the extended version of Jim Windolf’s Lost profile, download the Vanity Fair Magazine app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
The surprising thing about Holloway is this: Prior to joining the cast, at age 35, he had made his name as a male model, with acting roles here and there; but from the start of Lost he took charge of his character, displaying a range and charisma he hadn't shown before. He has perhaps proved himself the most versatile performer on the series. He hasn't won an Emmy, like his classically trained cast mates Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson, but he has been more than persuasive as an action guy, lover boy, and truth-telling fool. With his he-man physicality, male-model looks, and comic touch, he might end up a persuasive lead in romantic comedies or straight-ahead action pictures. If things break the right way, if he selects decent scripts, he could have the film career Matthew McConaughey should have had before he hopped the train to crazy town.
I watched Holloway on the Lost soundstage for two days in February. He seemed to be one of the most popular cast members with the crew; he's a friendly dude, with nothing of the pampered star about him, and he had some sort of inside joke for almost everyone he passed. We spoke on the metal steps of his trailer on the day he was shooting the big submarine sequence, during which a mistake made by his character leads to a few of his fellow castaways going kablooey. He was having a smoke as he talked. Through the trailer door I spotted his guitar. He seemed humble, with more than a hint of the actor's insecurity, as if he couldn't believe his luck.
Jim Windolf: Terry O'Quinn told me the two of you sometimes play and sing together, along with Naveen Andrews [who plays Sayid].
They're the pros, Terry and Naveen. They can play all kinds of stuff. They sing, play guitar, everything else. Harmonize. I can play a little, I can entertain you for a while, but I'm not on their level. It's a special thing, though, to be sitting around on set, and the girls have these angel voices, and Jorge [Garcia] can really rock it out, too.
Have you ever played in public?
Once. Years and years ago, I sang at a blues bar with a band behind me. It was with my friend, my guitar teacher at the time. I took some sporadic lessons. This was like eighteen years ago. I haven't done it lately because of the Internet and YouTube. I don’t feel like I'm on that level, to be going out there, when it's gonna be worldwide. People will cringe and be like, "Oh, my God, put that down!"
What music do you like?
I'm stuck way back. Rolling Stones. Pink Floyd. Neil Young. Alice in Chains. Radiohead.
Your character does a lot of different things, with the action and the comedy and the romance.
They've thrown everything at me. As an actor, to be able to experiment and grow and be pushed, it's been phenomenal for me and it's given me confidence to move forward.
Before you got this job, did you know you could do this?
No! Oh, hell, no! I still don't know! What did Liza Minnelli say? "They pay you for those butterflies."
You still get butterflies?
Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah. But I love the art of it. It's basically the study of human behavior.
How do you like your character in season six, with the sideways world?
It's interesting for me. It's the same guy, different perspective, which is what the show's about.
I've read a lot of show-business biographies, and every one of them says fame really does take a toll. How has it been for you? It must be heavy in a way that people who don't go through it can't see.
I could completely do without the fame. It makes me self-conscious. It is a responsibility. I believe that if people look up to you in any way, especially kids, then you have a responsibility to inspire them, both in your work and in your life. So, for me, that is a weight.
You have kids?
I have a little girl and, wow, the weight of responsibility to inspire and be an example is a lot for me. I take it seriously.
So that's the first thing that occurs to you about fame, rather than being harassed in public or something like that.
Yeah, but that's tough, too. Working in TV, we're in people's living rooms, and everyone has a different relationship to it than with movies. You're there every week; they feel like they know you. They call you by name, and it trips you up. I forget constantly until someone reminds me, but having validation in what you do is important. It's important for me as a man to be good at what I do, and I hope I'm getting better. And when you're an actor, that goes along with fame, I guess. It's validation that I'm on the right path.
Did you ever think you weren't on the right path?
Well, my God, I felt like I made the wrong decision for so long. L.A. will kick your ass. The business is ninety-nine percent rejection and then, finally, if things line up, you may get an opportunity.
Did you ever want to quit?
I quit three times!
What other jobs did you do?
I did print work, still-photograph modeling work, for fifteen years. So I traveled the world. And I had seventeen different jobs before I left Georgia. I did construction, I worked with horses, chickens. You name it, I've done it. But I subsidized the acting with print work and also construction.
Did you like the modeling work all right?
Yeah. I mean, it was funny to me at first. I used to joke that I couldn’t have sat around getting drunk on a Saturday afternoon and come up with an easier job than this. But it had its difficulties and its entrapments. For me, it was a means to an end. I wanted to see the world and travel and be a gypsy, and that's what you were.
Did you do runway modeling, too?
Oh, yeah, I worked with Versace and Armani. I did the very first Dolce & Gabbana show. I did all of them. Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, all those guys.
So you made a good living?
I made a very good living. Men don’t make that much money in that world, actually -- it's the ladies -- but we have a longer time we can do it. But the image thing, it left me empty a lot. I'm used to hard work and a feeling of fulfillment after you're exhausted from a day of work, and modeling was hard for me that way. I didn't feel so fulfilled, although I did enjoy everything around it.
Does it draw you into partying like a maniac?
Oh, yeah! It certainly can!
Is that a pitfall or was it just fun?
It's both. It's a bonus and a pitfall. But I think for women it's much more difficult, because of the real complexes they can develop about their image, having to stay so skinny, and all that kind of stuff. Men, it's just…
On this show you have to stay in shape. That must be difficult.
It's very difficult, because my wife and I love food -- rich French food and every type of good food you can think of. So that makes it difficult. And I'm older.
Do they give you a trainer?
No, but they give you the evil eye, if you're not in shape. It's your responsibility, to stay in shape. It's just like playing a professional sport. It's the A game. You pull it up or you're not in that game.
Are you looking past the show yet?
Sure. I'm gonna try movies for a couple years.
Have you committed to anything?
No. I'm gonna be patient. I learned some hard lessons early on. You really have to be discerning, because you don’t have many shots.
A bad movie sticks with you forever.
That's it. And then you're not thought of in that way and you're not considered. So you have to be discerning. It's like playing chess.
Have you been living on the island while doing the show?
Yeah, like eight, nine months a year. We bought a home here, first season. I love to fish, so we looked for a place on the water. I had a boat. Sold it just recently, but I did a lot of fishing.
What do you catch here?
Mahi mahi, ono, shortbill, marlin, tuna. I go thirty miles out.
With your wife?
No, no, no! She gets seasick, and it's no joke, crossing the Molokai channel. I've crossed it probably a hundred times, with huge waves I probably should not have been in. I've gone around the island, anchored down, camped on the beach, cooked a fresh fish.
Do you surf?
A little, but I can't read the ocean like someone who's been in it all their lives. I charge and I paddle, but I get creamed. I grew up in north Georgia, and there's not a lot of waves.
Did it seem crazy to your family, that you tried to be an actor after growing up there?
No, because I'd done the print work for years and years, so they were like, "Go for it, man, good luck." My parents were always behind me to be adventurous and to get out there and experience this world. However, after eight years of getting my ass kicked, they were a little concerned.
It's funny, what audiences will forgive. Even after seeing the stuff Sawyer does as a con man, they're still with you. If they like you, they like you.
Yes. That was a real interesting thing that happened, when people were responding to my character in the beginning, being a guy like Sawyer, and saying things most people would like to say but we just don’t say, because of compassion and all sort of different reasons. But there's a Sawyer in everybody, who wants to tell it how it is.
Then you had to play domestic Sawyer in “Dharmaville,” which was a tamped-down Sawyer, when he was with Juliet.
It was difficult. At first I didn’t like it. I fought to keep his edge, yet still explore a different side of him -- a softer side. That was his first loving relationship, not a wham-bam thank-you-ma'am, not the animalistic thing he had been used to all his life.
Sawyer and Juliet wasn't like Sawyer and Kate going at it in the polar bear cage.
Exactly. Not to say me and Juliet didn’t git it on the table! Who knows? But it was definitely an exploration. At first, Elizabeth Mitchell -- who's a wonderful actress -- at first Elizabeth and I were both a bit taken aback, because the Kate and Sawyer relationship, it took three years for us to earn that, to get to that point. Juliet and I, they gave us three scenes. Three scenes to develop that. We thought, "How the hell are we going to pull this off? The audience is going to hate us!" So that was our concern, that we didn’t have the time to earn it.
I guess in the story Sawyer jumps out of the helicopter, returns to the beach, and he's marooned with Juliet, so it makes sense in that context.
Yeah, I mean, unless he wants to be gay, which is totally cool with me. Either way. She was one of the only girls left on the island. So what are you gonna do -- go for the polar bear?
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