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'Lost': The Return of Michael Dawson

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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Have you been watching since you left?
HAROLD PERRINEAU: I saw the finale and a couple of shows throughout the season, but not the whole season.

Were you aware of the audience's backlash during the first half of last season?
I heard that people were not so excited because they had to explore the things with the Others, and they didn't really want to see that. They wanted to get back to the original cast. From what I understand, they actually had to do that to move things forward. It's just another chapter in their overall scheme. But yeah, people seemed pretty pissed, and I noticed they didn't get nominated for any awards. People seemed really pissed off about it, but it was just a thing they had to do. It's like reading any book. Every once in a while you might read a book and you love it all the way through. But a lot of times you read a chapter and you're like, Whatever...and then you get to the next chapter and it gets better. So how this is unfolding, they'll have to take the criticism, take the hit, and keep moving on. Hopefully, the entire book of it will justify everything that's gone on before.

What do you think of their deal to do a final three seasons with a set number of episodes per season?
I think that's an excellent idea. It's a much better idea than the show being a really big hit and then they have to keep it on for 10 years and suddenly we see episodes about Sawyer and, like, the spoon he made. Ya know what I mean? [Laughs] I think it's much better, because they've always said they had an idea of how long the show would go, so I'm glad they're going to just do that and finish telling the story. I mean, it's great to have a job forever, but this kind of job, it had its own thing going, so you can't really consider it like you consider most television shows.

Of course, money steps in when a show is as popular as Lost, so I guess it's to ABC's credit that they decided not to keep on milking it indefinitely.
Yeah, I'm sure they wanted to keep it going forever, so you've got to give them some credit for letting the creators do what they wanted to do.

Do you walk down the street and have people walk up and yell at you because Michael seemingly turned on everyone?
I did right after it happened. People were pretty pissed off about it. But then they kind of calmed down. They were like, ''Well, he got his kid back and he's gone.'' Then they started watching the third season, and they forgot. When I come back, they'll be pissed still or they won't. I don't know.... While I felt really bad about it, I always thought, He had to get his son back. What do you do? If I had to get my daughter back, I would do what I had to do. He even shot himself. The way they set it up, it was just a moment. He had to get [Ben] out, and he had to figure out how he could do it before [Ana-Lucia] comes in and kills him. How do you do it? That was a pretty good set-up.

When does shooting on the next season start back up?
In the next few weeks.

Do you live with your wife and daughter in L.A.?
Yeah. After the show last year, instead of coming back to New York, which is where I'm usually living, we figured we'd stay out here. There's a lot more work out here, and as it turns out, we're going back to Hawaii.

So you're bringing the family with you to Hawaii.
Everywhere I go.

I'd imagine it's easier than having to fly back all the time.
I don't think it's that bad. We have a few cast members who do that. I think Emilie De Ravin and Naveen Andrews fly back and forth. But we go together — my family loves Hawaii.

Have you talked to anyone at the show since you agreed to come back?
Oh yeah, I've talked to a bunch of folks. I spoke to Daniel Dae Kim, who knows I'm coming back, and Josh Holloway and I have spoken. I was hanging out last night with Maggie Grace, who used to be on the show.

Did you get tight as a cast?
It became a lot like that until people started to find their way on the island. The first year or so, we only had each other, so we became close. The show became a huge phenomenon — nobody expected that. It was strange, but we all understood, because it was happening to all of us, and that made us a lot closer. We lived on different parts of the island, and as we became more ingrained in our communities, we didn't hang as much as we did that first season. It just became regular, and people come and go, which changes things a lot, too. But we all sort of bonded forever because of that [first season].

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