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Evangeline Lilly

Of all the cast members on Lost, only one can say that she’s been in a Best Picture winner since the show began. What’s more, the actress who can say this might surprise you (though if you’re a fan of Lost and have seen the movie, you recognized her): Evangeline Lilly, who plays Kate Austen on Lost. Lilly had a small but pivotal role in last year’s Best Picture winner, The Hurt Locker, where she played the sometime-estranged wife of the lead bomb defuser. Seeing as Kate is often maligned as the worst character on the show (or at least the worst original character on the show), why put Lilly here? It’s not just because she’s gorgeous (although that…you know…it helps). No, the final season of Lost has proven that Lilly’s talents have never been the problem. We could criticize the writers, but Lilly’s had plenty of emotional beats to hit this season, and knocked each out of the park.

Lilly is one of two notable cast members who has said that they want to quit the acting game; the other is Matthew Fox, who plays the de facto protagonist of the show, Jack Shephard. Fox has backtracked a bit, saying that he’d rather make movies, as he’s been associated with TV for 15 years (you do remember Party of Five, right?). Lilly’s said the same, but seems to be sticking to it, and that’s a shame. Even if she started out a bit green (her role on Lost is her first major role in pretty much anything), Lilly is an expressive actress, able to show her anguish at the loss of her friends, able to be flirtatious with Fox or Holloway, able to bring a sincere amount of bafflement to the table when any of the science-fiction elements of the series come into play. If she quits, I’ll understand, but I’d love to see her get better-written roles in the future, so we can see that she’s been a lot more talented than we gave her credit for.

Jeff Fahey

Logic aside, there’s probably no way that Jeff Fahey’s ever going to be a star in the future, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to be the wisecracking side character in every other movie for the next ten years, right? I know, there are probably some of you reading this who are either casual fans of Lost or don’t watch the show who are asking who the hell Jeff Fahey is. Fahey, before coming to Lost, was the title character of The Lawnmower Man, appeared in various TV series, and makes a similarly wisecracking appearance in the Robert Rodriguez-helmed Planet Terror. He came onto Lost at the beginning of the fourth season as helicopter pilot Frank Lapidus, a grouchy, smart, yet alcoholic pilot who came to the Island via freighter. Despite working for some bad dudes, he’d come onto the freighter with some baggage: he not only believed that the Oceanic 815 plane crash found at the bottom of the ocean was a fake (and was right), but he had been meant to fly Oceanic 815 on the fateful day of the crash.

Once there, Frank was on the side of the angels, as long as those angels have a high tolerance for humor. Fahey was always good with a darkly humorous one-liner, even if his character wasn’t as fully developed as some of the others on this list. You may even say that Frank was somewhat unnecessary in season six, but guess what? I don’t care. He became a great audience surrogate, and that’s enough of a purpose for me. Frank’s status is dead (or, if you’re me, presumed dead) thanks to a submarine accident a few weeks back, but Fahey’s career could see a resurgence. He’s appearing in Rodriguez’s next film, Machete, and has a couple other projects coming out. What the guy needs are weightier roles that don’t skimp on the humor. I can’t think of a great specific role for Fahey, but someone else aside from Rodriguez and the Lost writers have to see this man’s potential, and fast.

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