A genuine fan favorite got shot in the heart last night on Lost. Why? Because heartbreak is this show's middle name. Read on for the dish from the dead...
(SPOILERS INSIDE, TUBERS! Don't click in if you haven't seen the end of last night's Lost!)
Blake Bashoff was kind enough to speak with me this morning about the death of Lost's Karl. He shared a little dish about a deleted shot from the final scene, his gut feeling about the fate of Rousseau, and who might be pulling the strings—or at least the trigger.
Are you really dead?
I think I'm pretty much shot dead.
How did this come about?
The timing just sort of worked out. I booked this Broadway show, Spring Awakening, that was going to take me away for at least six months. We called Carlton and Damon and gave them the heads-up. They know the show that I'm doing, they're big fans of it, and they said that's an amazing opportunity, so they went back to the writers' room and brainstormed. And I think that this was actually an idea that they threw out there early on—that Karl would eventually bite the dust, and this was the right time.
Now, for the fans who want to see more of you, tell us: What's this Broadway thing you're doing?
Thanks for asking. It's Spring Awakening at the Eugene O'Neill in New York, Broadway and 49th. It's won eight Tonys, and it's the story of young love in 1890s Germany. I play Moritz, but the music is all modern rock 'n' roll. I always just did TV for years and then this came along, and it's wonderful.
The good news is you got the Han Solo line before you died: "I've got a bad feeling about this." I think that's a little gift from the producers. What did they tell you when they told you about the scene?
I wish I knew more than what we all saw last night, but it's sort of all shrouded in secrecy. Watching the episode last night, I did notice that [something that we shot wasn't shown]. On the day we filmed it, the people who were shooting at us, there was actually a great shot of the snipers emerging through the jungle in these incredible, elaborate, jungle camouflage uniforms. And I don't know if you got a sense of that last night or not—I think you just saw movement in the trees.
In terms of what they told me, they didn't tell me much except it's going to be exciting, and we'll hope to have you back in some capacity, and the good news is when you do come back, you serve a cool purpose like Mr. Friendly last night.
Obviously, there's going to be a scene that follows the scene we ended on last night. Do you think that Danielle is killed dead, and will we see any more of Karl's body, or are we just going to leave him there in the dirt?
That's a good question. If you do see Karl's body, I don't think it will actually be me. But they've done it in the past where they have these great body doubles who can certainly play corpses masterfully. Rousseau? I don't know. She's pretty blown up, but...I have a sense you haven't seen the last of Rousseau.
I have a backstory question. I don't know if you have any idea about the answers to this, but I think we learned at one point that Karl was an orphan, and in a sense Alex is, too. Ben obviously adopted Alex and made her his daughter and raised her, but Karl's this foundling who can go to hell as far as Ben is concerned. Do you know anything about why Alex was favored and Karl wasn't?
I wish I did, because I still don't know much about Karl's backstory, especially with pregnant women on the Island. I sort have no idea where he was conceived and where he came from, but I assume he grew up on the Island since he didn't know what The Brady Bunch is.
In the end, I think basically Karl and Alex and Ben comes down to Ben being an overprotective father and knowing what happens to pregnant women on the Island, and knowing that Karl and Alex were clearly in love and wanted to make a life for themselves and maybe even get off the Island. And he was just playing the father card and didn't want to run the risk of Alex getting pregnant at all.
I guess that leads into the next question: Did Ben kill you? Was that Ben?
Really good question. It's hard to tell, right? It's hard to tell based on the writing—they certainly hinted that it could be a possibility, because you know, Karl was astute and asked, "Why isn't everybody going? Why are you just sending us?" And the bullets sort of clearly missed Alex. However, it's my gut that Ben was genuinely trying to protect Alex and genuinely thought that Rousseau could, would, protect her, if need be. It's hard to tell with Ben, but I think that this is real.
And what was it like leaving the show and Tania Raymonde?
I love the show. It's a great group—not to mention they're all incredibly good-looking—and, I mean, you get to shoot in paradise. And Tania? Tania's wonderful. I guess I'm more of the introverted type, and she's the life of the party. I love working with her.
Well, we can't wait until you can come back to Lost, because Karl and Alex are awesome, and I think there's a lot left to learn about them.
Thank you very much.
If you need a Blake fix between now and the return of Karl, check out Spring Awakening in New York City.
Source: Eonline
