Media Scribbler

Image copyright Lisa Finnegan

Jorge Garcia is going to miss the island he has adopted as his home almost as much as he will miss working with his Lost cast members when the show wraps in two years – if his character makes it to the finish.

“We all bonded easily and we enjoy working with each other. We hang out together, Josh has barbecues that we go to sometimes and Daniel has had people over. His old place was especially good for that because he had a screening room and when those of us had to stay on the island and some people got to go to award shows, we’d go to Daniel’s place to watch it together,” he said during an interview with b5media at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. “It is going to be very weird to move back to LA, I mean I drive slower because they drive slow in Hawaii and there are a lot of things like that and so I don’t know how it will go.”

While he considers his next career move, he says he hopes his character makes it to the end.

“There is still an element of threat for each of the characters for sure and any of us could die at any time. I want to stay around for as long as I can, but there are never any guarantees on any show and on a show like Lost, where people die all the time, you never know if you’re going to make it,” he said.

Like most people, he doesn’t know how the story progresses and says he is not interested in knowing more than the fans because it would spoil the surprise.

“I think the show is better the less you know as you go through it and I have become quite a fan of Lost and I enjoy reading what happens,” he said. “Also people always ask me a lot of questions about what’s going to happen and it is just easier for me not to know and to not have to worry about it.”

If he could play another character, he’d choose Ben. “I think it would be really fun to be Ben, just the the whole history he has had and all the things he’s done. I am a big fan of what Michael Emerson has done with the character.”

Garcia, who doesn’t fit into any stereotype, said he struggled to find a place in the industry before settling into Lost. “My mother is from Cuban and my father is from Chile and I’m a big guy,” he said. ” When I first got into the business I had a hard time getting auditions because they’d say ‘we’re not looking for a person of color,’ or I’d get called to an audition and they were looking for a gang banger type and I don’t really have that vibe either. One guy told me ‘you’re more Euro Latin,’ whatever that means. I think that what I’m most proud of is that I show that there is no one Latino stereotype. We’re not all migrant workers or gang bangers, we don’t fit into any stereotype.”

His favorite scenes are when a bunch of the cast are together, something he says doesn’t happen that often any more. “It was really fun hanging out in the van driving all over the place and I really liked when the lady parachuted in. That was a lot of fun because there were a lot of us hanging out.” One mystery he wants resolved is the smoke monster. “What is that smoke monster, it’s been around since the beginning of the show,” he said. “I want to know what that thing is.”

A large man, Garcia hasn’t faced a lot of pressure to trim down, but does find it interesting that fans locked on to his weight rather than other inconsistencies on the show. “There were a lot of people who kept wondering why I didn’t lose weight and I don’t know why they were so focused on that rather than why the women didn’t have any hair under their arms or why the guys didn’t have beards down to their knees.”

Garcia and Naveen Andrews held a press conference where they spoke with international journalists about Lost and other things, a video will be posted here soon.

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