The man behind Ben Linus has bittersweet emotions about this week’s finale By Adam Rosenberg, with reporting by Josh Wigler Photo: MTV News On Tuesday night’s “Lost,” Michael Emerson’s Benjamin Linus was pulled in two directions. On the Island, the always-devious former Other recovered from his recent efforts to repent, killing Charles Widmore and allying himself with the malevolent entity that fans have come to know as the Smoke Monster. Meanwhile, in the sideways timeline, a kinder, gentler Linus was introduced by favorite student Alex (Tania Raymonde) to her mother, the long-departed Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan). Similarly, Emerson finds himself pulled in opposite directions as the much-beloved series that he is a fundamental part of approaches its two-and-a-half-hour finale this Sunday. While there are certainly some things that he won’t miss, he told MTV News that it’s a bittersweet parting. “I guess I’ll miss the exotic adventure of the process,” Emerson said. “I don’t think I’ll ever again go to work in jungles or on cliffs or in majestic valleys where you cannot help but be in character and in the place where these events happen, because they’re overpowering.” “Lost” started, and will very likely end, on a mysterious island in the Pacific. Though the show has featured action (in the past, future and “sideways” universe) in other parts of the world, the remote island setting has always been a fundamental focus, an oddity in television programming today. “Most of the time you work on TV, it’s in courtrooms and precincts and offices and stuff like that,” Emerson said. “[‘Lost’ is] like old school, like making movies in faraway places. It had that exoticism about it.” What the soft-spoken actor won’t miss is the time away from his family. His wife, Carrie Preston, is a star on HBO’s vampire series “True Blood,” which shoots in Los Angeles, quite a distance away from the “Lost” set in Hawaii. As Emerson said, “I’m happy that I’ll never again have to figure out what to do on a Sunday night in Honolulu.” Head over to the MTV Movies Blog to vote for the “Lost” Awards from now through the finale.
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‘Lost’ Star Michael Emerson Will Miss ‘Exotic Adventure’ Of The Island
