Jen: When you got the script for “Everybody Loves Hugo” and got to the point where it says, “Desmond hits John Locke with his car,” what was your reaction to that?
Cusick: I sort of figured it out quite quickly… well, my interpretation of it. I sort of knew why that was. I thought it was a little bit extreme. I sort of thought that I had to get John Locke into a place where I was trying to wake him up. So it made sense to me. When I’m acting, I’ve always got to make it make sense to me why I do anything. Whether it’s right or wrong, I’ve just got to believe this is the reason why I am doing this and just go with it. Does that make sense?
Jen: Yeah, it does. So the notion that you were trying to wake him up, that’s something you got pretty much right away from reading it?
Cusick: I had to believe that was the reason I was doing it. There may be another reason I was doing it. But as an actor, because they don’t tell you why you’re doing things — I figured out very early on on this show that even if you don’t know the real reason why you’re doing stuff, you as an actor have to have a reason why you do things and just believe that. It’s a little like Harold Pinter because you don’t really know the— because it’s a cryptic bizarre script, you have to have reasons for doing stuff. Otherwise, it just looks empty.
(via Celebritology 2.0 - Talking ‘Lost’ with Henry Ian Cusick)
