Exclusive: LOST’s Michael Emerson Says That’s It For The Island

"I was delighted with the way my character was resolved. Like everyone else, I play the character, and I’d think, 'How are they going to do it? How is Ben going out?' You know? Will it be in some cataclysmic act of violence or - I couldn’t imagine what they were going to do. So that the ending turned out to be so human, and so quiet... And so reflective... It took me by surprise, and then I thought, 'Oh this is perfect.' I couldn’t have imagined it – but it was perfect. So I was pleased with it, and overall, I was happy with the tone of the ending. I think they lived up to the huge pressures and expectations that were placed on them, our writers. I think they did a great job.

"And like any great work of – I won’t say 'art,' maybe I’ll say 'entertainment' – it was open to interpretation, like a great book, or a great play would be. It’s something you go home and talk about, and argue about. Carrie (wife and True Blood star Carrie Preston) and I talked for days, arguing about the finale, and I think we ended up with a take we were happy with. We ended up being really...satisfied, and we really feel like we have our own satisfying interpretation of the ending."

"I was thrilled to be able to play what I felt like were two characters in one show, in this final season. I know they’re both Benjamin, but they’re in different palates. And I know that sideways, or "teacher Benjamin" has some of the same impulses, some of the same qualities, some of the same chemistry of the Ben we’ve always known, but it’s so much more muted. It’s portrayed in a more everyday palate, in a world where there isn’t adventure, and violence. So I thought that was a nice challenge that the writers threw me, and it came at a time when I was happy to rethink the character, and dig a little deeper, and think about how I could make another, a different Ben. So it made me very happy. I would say it was the chief pleasure of the sixth season for me, juggling those two Bens."

"I feel like Ben – and I’m so proud to be the one character who is left in the grey zone. I feel like Ben became a character out of Beckett or something. He’s made to wait. He’s unresolved. He cannot pass through the gate into a serene eternity. He’s still waiting for forgiveness, redemption – all those things the others have achieved.

"And because I’m a Shakespearian, I was pleased to see, too, how much the ending resembled the end of a good Shakespeare play. You know, at the end of a good Shakespeare comedy, everyone is united into couples, and they walk off, presumably, into a happy afterlife. And that’s sort of how they wrapped up our show. People found their mirror redeemer, the person who gives them unqualified love so they’re allowed to redeem themselves... All of that. But Benjamin doesn’t have that, at least not yet. So I thought, 'Oh how perfect, that I’m the one left hanging.'"

"We filmed it during the filming of the finale, which, as you might imagine, was a logistical headache. The finale was bad enough – it was like filming a feature film in four weeks. So in our spare time, as if we had any, we’re supposed to be off with another camera unit filming the DVD extra. But I was happy to be picked, and happy to do it. I was as excited about what I had to play in the DVD extra feature, as I was about what I had to play in the finale.

"So I lucked out, and got to be in this really interesting thing. Because I’m a fan of the show too, and I knew that there was this great gap in the narrative that when people saw the finale, they would say, 'But what about that whole, historic period when Hurley is in charge of the Island, what happens during that time?' And luckily, we get a little taste of that. A little piece of that world, in the extra."