Lost concluded its six-season run six years ago today. We catch up with the cast and crew, who’ve all come a long way since getting off the Island!
ABC’s Lost, created by J.J. Abrams and helmed by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, bowed on May 23, 2010. Its series finale closed the mystery series on an emotional note (which left some fans wildly disappointed), giving all its characters a happy ending in the afterlife.
Six years later, and the ripples of Lost can still be felt in the ocean of TV (just go with it), not least because almost all the main cast and crew are now involved with high-profile projects! Find out where you can see your favorite actors, and learn more about their post-Lost careers.
Evangeline Lilly (Kate)
Evangeline Lilly’s Kate may not have been the most liked character on Lost, but Lilly’s phenomenal acting was never in doubt!
It’s therefore unsurprising that she’s one of the few Lost stars who’s jumped to major big-screen franchises, first starring as Tauriel in the Hobbit trilogy and then joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Hope van Dyne, a.k.a. The Wasp, in Ant-Man.
While not (yet) getting a solo movie, the Wasp is considered an important enough part of the next Ant-Man instalment that she’s warranted a namedrop in the movie’s title, which is Ant-Man and the Wasp. We can’t wait to see her kicking ass in 2018.
Josh Holloway (Sawyer)
Josh Holloway’s post-Lost projects have been hit-and-miss, the promising CBS series Intelligence cancelled after only one season. Luckily his new series, the surprisingly good USA Network drama Colony (helmed by Carlton Cuse!), has been renewed for a second season and will return in 2017.
In Colony, Holloway co-stars with The Walking Dead‘s Sarah Wayne Callies. Taking place in the near future, Colony follows a family trying to stay alive in an occupied Los Angeles, and fans of Sawyer will definitely appreciate the character of Will Bowman — in many ways, this is what we’d imagine Sawyer and Juliet would have been like if they’d made it off the island and started a family.
Matthew Fox (Jack)
Lost‘s lead actor Matthew Fox is one of the only members of the cast whose career has lulled after the end of the series.
Between legal troubles and his proclamation that he was “done with television” after Lost, this is perhaps unsurprising. Fox had a small role World War Z, and has starred in a couple of low-profile projects including the underrated horror movie Extinction, the star-studded Western Bone Tomahawk (in which he co-starred with Kurt Russell), and the WWII drama Emperor.
Emilie de Ravin (Claire)
When Lost writing team Adam Horowitz and Ed Kitsis traded Smoke Monsters for fairy tales, they took Emilie de Ravin with them. While Lost unfortunately lost sight of Claire’s character in later seasons, Belle on OUAT is alive and well, contributing to the narrative the best she can while still tied up with the Rumpelstiltskin plot.
But Belle continues to be a hero in her own right, as the writers weave her into the other characters’ stories with comparative success. It’s also nice to get to see de Ravin’s character get to be happy once in a while — something there wasn’t much cause for on the Island.
Dominic Monaghan (Charlie)
Dom Monaghan’s career went in a totally different direction after Lost, but we like it. While he’s had significant roles on genre-friendly shows like Flash Forward, The Unknown and Quantum Break, his most interesting project is definitely Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan.
The travel-adventure series follows Monaghan as he travels the globe in Penny’s boat searching for “the most badass animals in the world.” Wild Things is just a fantastic way to explore the world from your own living room, and Monaghan’s passion for nature and foreign cultures is palpable. Definitely worth your time.
Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet)
Juliet, the one Lost character every one of us can agree #DeservedBetter, has not been idle post-Island. Elizabeth Mitchell’s career has seen her battling aliens in V, battling the elements in Revolution, battling Frozen fever in Once Upon a Time, and battling international crime in the second season of Crossing Lines.
Next up, Mitchell will co-star in the horror series Dead of Summer, playing camp counselor Deb Carpenter. The drama, which premieres this June on Freeform, takes place at a summer camp in the late 1980s. “Part coming-of-age, part supernatural horror story, Dead of Summer is a bold, new series that mixes genres as it examines the light and dark of a summer like no other,” the official synopsis reads.
Jorge Garcia (Hurley)
Jorge Garcia’s post-Lost career has amounted to roles in a handful of high-profile comedies including The Wedding Ringer, The Ridiculous Six and Get a Job, as well as some fantastic stints on TV series — including a two-season arc on Daniel Dae Kim’s Hawaii Five-0 and a guest role on Emilie de Ravin’s Once Upon a Time!
Garcia headlined the ill-fated Alcatraz on ABC in 2012, cancelled before its time, and we’re still waiting for TV to give him another show all of his own. While we hold out for Ben and Hurley’s Island Adventures, we can anticipate Jorge Garcia in the upcoming movie When We Were Pirates (also starring Lost alums Henry Ian Cusick and Harold Perrineau), the time traveling thriller Running Out of Time, and the promising animation Rock Dog.
Michael Emerson (Ben)
Michael Emerson went straight from Lost to another critically acclaimed TV series, CBS’ procedural drama Person of Interest, which is currently in its fifth season.
While Lost fans will probably always hold a candle for that Michael Emerson/Terry O’Quinn workplace dramedy that almost was, Person of Interest certainly plays to Emerson’s strengths as an enigmatic performer — plus, he actually gets to be nice on occasion, unlike Ben, who was just deliciously creepy.
Yunjin Kim (Sun)
Yunjin Kim, a hugely famous South Korean actress before landing the role of Sun on Lost, returned home to star in a couple of high-profile projects including Heartbeat, The Neighbors and the beautiful period drama Ode to My Father.
But to American audiences, her most mainstream project is obviously Mistresses, the ABC summer drama where she stars as lead character Karen Kim. The show has been renewed for a fourth season, with no signs of slowing down.
Daniel Dae Kim (Jin)
Daniel Dae Kim is another Lost star who’s stuck with television, to his benefit. He even stayed in Hawaii, going from Jin to Chin Ho on Hawaii Five-0, the cop procedural going on its seventh season.
Sci-fi fans might also remember him from the Divergent series, where he played Candor representative Jack Kang. Kim’s voice will also be familiar to Legend of Korra fans as he voiced Hiroshi Sato.
Finally, Daniel Dae Kim just made his Broadway debut in The King and I, giving a (by all accounts) impressive performance as King Mongkut opposite Marin Mazzie’s Anna.
Terry O’Quinn (Locke)
There’s been no shortage of roles for Terry O’Quinn post-Locke, although almost without fail they have been cancelled too soon. First there was 666 Park Avenue, then Falling Skies, and finally Gang Related.
O’Quinn joined Daniel Dae Kim (and Jorge Garcia) on Hawaii Five-0 for a bit, but unfortunately Joe White (while still alive) is no longer with us on the cop drama. The actor also appeared in the second season of the anthology series Full Circle on DirectTV, and he’s set to appear in a couple of episodes of the Juliette Lewis-Ryan Phillippe drama Secrets and Lies this year.
Harold Perrineau (Michael)
“Waaaaaaaaaalt!” actor Harold Perrineau has had no time to search for his son since leaving the Island. First he voiced the title character in Marvel’s short-lived Blade animated series, then followed an amazing role on Sons of Anarchy, after which he took a breather from the dark and dreary to co-star with Brian Austin Green in the Wedding Band comedy series.
Most recently Perrineau co-starred on NBC’s gone-but-not-forgotten Constantine, and also appeared in an episode of The Mysteries of Laura in between his many movie projects. Catch him next in When We Were Pirates with Henry Ian Cusick and Jorge Garcia, as well as the highly anticipated I’m Not Here in 2017 (also starring Sebastian Stan, J.K. Simmons and Max Greenfield).
Naveen Andrews (Sayid)
Unfortunately, the promising Once Upon a Time spinoff Wonderland did not provide Naveen Andrews with the job security we might have hoped. Luckily there was a role waiting for Andrews in Netflix’s Sense8 — targeted at a very different audience, we should note!
It’s also worth going back and checking out Andrews’ first major post-Lost project, Sinbad, a surprisingly enjoyable little series where he co-starred as Lord Akbari.
Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond)
Last but certainly not least, Henry Ian Cusick has stayed true to genre, swapping one stranded-in-a-place-that’s-trying-to-kill-you series for another. Cusick plays Marcus Kane on The CW’s The 100, an intense genre show about a group of people born in space who struggle to survive on a radiation-harrowed Earth whose people — the Grounders — have evolved without them.
While on The 100, Cusick also found time for an arc on Scandal, and upcoming projects include When We Were Pirates (a reunion with Perrineau and Garcia), and the Mark Palansky-directed Rememory, a classic in the making with Peter Dinklage, Anton Yelchin, Julia Ormond and Carrie Anne Fleming.
…And everyone else
With Ian Somerhalder (Boone) chilling in Mystic Falls as Damon on The Vampire Diaries, Maggie Grace (Shannon) constantly needing rescue in the Taken franchise, Michelle Rodriguez (Ana Lucia) being Fast and Furious, Mark Pellegrino (Jacob) literally being the devil on Supernatural and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr Eko) active this summer in Suicide Squad, it’s fair to say that the cast of Lost have done very well for themselves after the conclusion of the ABC series!
And then of course there’s the small matter of ringleader J.J. Abrams running around making Star Wars movies, while his trusted second-in-command Damon Lindelof blew everyone away with The Leftovers (sadly not returning for another round on HBO after its upcoming third season).
Lindelof’s other half Carlton Cuse is doing Colony with Josh Holloway, Ed Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are keeping the dream alive on Once Upon a Time, and composer Michael Giacchino has made the leap to the big screen with Up, Inside Out, Star Trek and Marvel’s upcoming Doctor Strange. And you’ll recognize the names of pretty much all the Lost writers, from Javier Grillo-Marxuach and David Fury to Drew Goddard and Jeff Pinkner, from other hugely exciting post-Lost projects as well.
What a legacy! Thank you Lost — you truly are the gift that keeps on giving.