Yesterday, Mark Pellegrino talked in some detail about his role as Lucifer on the CW hit series Supernatural. Today, in the second half of our exclusive two-part interview, the talented actor sheds admittedly less light on what viewers can expect to see early in the new year when he returns to Lost as the enigmatic character, Jacob. Damn that Lost veil of secrecy! We also got Pellegrino talking about the upcoming horror film Bad Meat (2009) and even about his skeleton in the closet: the astonishingly awful action-drama on roller blades, Prayer of the Rollberboys (1990), which starred Corey Haim and Patricia Arquette.
Lost is one of the most complex and dense series ever produced. Having stepped into the show so late in The Game, with your first appearance in the fifth-season finale, "The Incident," how much do you need to understand the Lost universe in order to play a character as enigmatic as Jacob?
My wife can usually know the end of a movie from the beginning. She knew within five minutes that Bruce Willis was dead in The Sixth Sense. Very annoying sometimes. And she doesn't even know what it means yet or where everything is going in Lost. And that's the beauty of that show. They always surprise ya. Since I'm not quite as clever as her -- when the ring rolled across the floor, so did my jaw -- I prefer to be on a need-to-know basis. I know what I need in the scene and how I feel about it. And that's it, although I occasionally get an ominous hint or two...which I can't reveal.
How much have (Lost writers-producers) Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk and the guys told you about Jacob? And to your thinking, who -- or what -- the hell is this guy?
On this account I can say very little. The things I do know, I am sorry to say, will be revealed at a later date.
We tried. Let's go at it this way. How many episodes can we expect to see you in? And what are the chances you'll be around long enough to appear in the series finale?
There will be a number. But the amount and placement are locked away in a safe, deep in a cave in Diamond Head.
IMDb says you're working on a film called Bad Meat. What's the basic premise and what do you play?
Bad Meat is a horror-comedy, my favorite genre, about some delinquent kids who get sent to a kind of summer boot camp to straighten them out. After the disgruntled cook feeds the sadistic staff some bad meat -- which transforms them into flesh-eating zombies a la mad cow disease -- the kids have to literally fight their way through the wilderness and the zombies to safety. I play the very sadistic camp counselor and boss of the whole crazy crew. What fun.
We're pretty sure that most people ask you for stories about The Big Lebowski and your experience on that, but you're in one of our all-time favorite bad movies, Prayer of the Rollerboys. What do you remember of playing Banjo in that?
My God. You had to go there didn't you?! Day of the Rope! Let's see. Here's some fragments, because that was a long time ago. I remember bad hair. My girlfriend called me "the tip" -- short for Q-tip -- because of the color of my hair. Corey (Haim) could skate. I thought I could, but had a really hard time in those absurd formations. Patricia (Arquette) was adorable. That little stunt double for Corey kicked my ass with a plastic pipe. I had a welt on my ribs the size of Wisconsin. And that's it. Banjo!
Written By Ian Spelling (Contributing Writer)
