Looking back at how the series wrapped up, Emerson exclusively tells RadioTimes.com: “Oh, I adored it when we shot it, and I like it even better with the passage of time. I think it’s a wonderful conclusion.
“I always say, every show dictates its own ending by the form of its narrative, by the way it was constructed. So a show like Lost can’t have the same ending as something more linear or conventional.
“It was a fantasy and an allegory exploding out from the centre. So to end it, you must bring all the parts back to the centre, I think. At least, it seems to me, that that was what they were attempting to do.
“To me, it was really satisfying – particularly if you’re playing Benjamin Linus and you’re left outside the gates of the hereafter on a cold stone bench because you haven’t earned it yet. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s perfect.’ It really was perfect. And sad too, in a way.
“Again, the work mirrored the social ending of the family. All my friends in the cast were trooping by to go off to some golden paradise, and I’m there saying goodbye as they pass. And it was the end of things. It was the end of that golden adventure, in addition to the show.”
Emerson joined Lost in season 3 but quickly became a staple of the show, describing his experience as a “character actor’s dream”.
He remained on the show until it ended in 2010 – but Ben’s legacy has continued, with the character often being dubbed one of the greatest TV villains of all time.
“He had a mystery about him. He was hard to figure. I wanted him to be hard to figure. I try to play everything in a kind of neutral mode. I like a level of ambiguity and not knowing.
“I want to intrigue the audience, make them make them wonder, make them curious and to have questions puzzle them a little bit. I feel like that’s my job,” he explains.
Years after it first premiered, new generations are finding Lost, with the series recently arriving Netflix in the US and UK.
“It’s interesting and exciting that it is still as popular as it is,” Emerson, who has gone onto star in shows including Evil, reflects.
“I know people that do that. I have not yet watched it since it wrapped, but I think I need to, because everybody has the advantage of me.
“They can name episode titles and numbers and and quote dialogue to me, and it’s hard for me to conjure that up again. But through the mists of the passage of time, it does seem all a bit dream-like.
“It occurs to me that my experience of being an actor on Lost was a bit like being a castaway on the island. I, too, flew to a strange island in the middle of the great ocean, and had magical adventures there that seem a little unreal now, when I look back on them.
“It was a terrific experience and good fortune, and I should say, a character actor’s dream come true, to be given a little turn, a couple of episodes, and to make yourself, somehow, for the writing team indispensable, and so they kept me for a long time.”
He adds of the impact that Ben had on his life: “It made me a face that people recognise on the street, and that has never gone away since then, because it has such a long life. It was great. I felt like my skill-set was a good match, and I felt like I had a dream collaboration with the writers room.
“I would give them things, character details or peculiarities, and they would write toward it, so that we had a loop going, and I can’t tell you how satisfying it was.
“And to have so many scenes of dangerous stillness with other good actors, stuff where lives were at stake, really high stakes stuff – scenes with John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) in cramped quarters where you didn’t know what was going to happen, or who was going to walk out of the room alive. It’s thrilling to play those kinds of scenes.”
In the age of reboots, it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that someone might want to try their hand at remaking Lost in years to come. But would it actually work?
“It would have to be a really intelligent, different take on everything,” Emerson points out.
“It could be Lost-ish, but with a difference. And of course, you would never assemble that cast again. But I don’t know. It’s an idea. It’s a piece of intellectual property – people can do what they please with it, I suppose, if they can get the rights and then see what you can do. Prove yourself with it.
“It’d be quite an undertaking to try to top the original. Partly, it’s just the time when it happened – 2004. It was just at the beginning of huge online forum about shows and stuff and talking about them and going fan-crazy on them.
“I don’t know if we can revisit that special feeling that that show had, but maybe something else. Maybe something else brilliant.”
Lost is available to watch on Disney Plus. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year now.
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