The Time I Accidentally Tricked A 'Lost' Actor Into Spoiling The Ending

Back in 2010, during the final season of Lost, I did the weekly, post-episode interviews with cast members throughout that final season for Vulture. This was not an easy gig for a few reasons. First, for the first half of that season they were still filming in Hawaii. Which meant whatever cast member I was talking to that week couldn't do the interview until they wrapped for the day. Which meant most of my interviews occurred sometime between midnight and 3am Eastern time. Second, and most annoyingly, each and every one of them were highly skilled at saying absolutely nothing about any upcoming episodes.

Well, except one.

I was thinking about this because of Damon Lindelof's involvement with Lanterns, and the memory of him confronting me about all this at a media event. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead, we'll get to that. But this is the only time in my career I can remember an interview subject say, panicked, “Oh god. Oh shit.” A part of an interview that’s never been published before, until today…

(The Hard Pass only exists because of paying subscribers and I do need to have posts just for them. If you decide to become a paying subscriber today, there is plenty left to this story, plus a lot more like the story I was told about Tom Cruise that is now my favorite Tom Cruise story, approaching Philip Seymour Hoffman to ask him about Along Came Polly, and the time Larry King called me a "freak" and asked if I was "a nerd.")