QUANTUM OF SOLACE

 

An interview with Jeremy Davies (Daniel Faraday), featuring in issue #22 of Lost Magazine.

 

Lost Jeremy Davies Lost Magazine: Jeremy, you’re very much known as an actor that mostly lives and breathes in the independent film world. Has that been a conscious career choice?

 

Jeremy Davies: I’m a really fortunate fool in that I’ve been able to set up my life and my so-called misfit career in a way that allows me choices. When I first started I took some of the Monopoly money that this town is known for giving misfits like myself and invested it pretty wisely. Basically, I set my life up so I don’t have to work. I didn’t want to have to work if I felt I didn’t have anything to offer a filmmaker. The only power you really have in this business, unless you are on a really high level, is to be able to say “No”. I’ve even delayed the privilege of starting a family for a number of reasons, this being one of them.

 

When the producers of Lost came knocking on your door, what were your initial thoughts about possibly joining such a high-profile show?

 

I have waited around to generate, or wait for opportunities, to come onboard or stow away onboard film projects with filmmakers that I deeply admire because I have blasphemous intentions of becoming a reasonably competent film-maker in my own right some day. I’ve turned my acting career into a four-dimensional film school for a long time now and I’ve sought out mentors from all over the world like Lars von Trier (Dogville)— I sent him a letter—and Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn). So when Lost came along I was very intrigued because it was one of few TV shows that I was aware of—and when I say that, it’s not out of disrespect to TV, but I had grown up without television, and never had one, so I really watched and studied films. But even without having TV, this show had such a reputation. Even for me, who is very much out of the mainstream, I had an awareness and had developed a god-sized respect for Damon, J.J. and Carlton. When it came along, as I always do, I like to see if something can contribute to my film education and I definitely thought it could, but I really had no idea how much that would be.

 

Do you know how you came onto Damon and Carlton’s radar?

 

I believe the summer before season four they had seen me in Rescue Dawn. I lost forty pounds for that role and I think that reminded them of me when they were looking for someone to fill the role. Wildly against their better judgment they made me an offer. At that point, I had such respect for these cats that the idea of being a PA getting coffee for any of them was provocative. When I spoke to them after the offer, their perception of the character was so strikingly vivid, complex, well thought out and polymorphous. Plus there is so much synchronicity with this character and my life, which they had no idea about, like I have long been a fan of quantum physics well before this show.

 

Coming from the indie film world – which is pretty fast-paced and lean itself – was it easy getting acclimated to the demanding pace of a one-hour drama?

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I came from a pretty subterranean independent film background which is very guerilla filmmaking, which is why I am drawn to the filmmakers that I am. So I understand guerilla filmmaking. My first lead in a film was Spanking the Monkey and it was shot with 16 and 17-hour days for six days a week for three weeks. Before post, we also did it for $75, 000, which was crazy. I was used to that velocity in shooting, but even with that film, what we had that Lost doesn’t have is at least a month of rehearsal before we went out to shoot.

 

Read the full interview in issue #22 of Lost Magazine – on sale now.

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