Dominic Monaghan on ‘Flash Foward’, living in LA and coming back to ‘Lost’

From Movieline:

How did your role on FlashForward come about? Was ABC looking to keep you in the family?
I read the script and called my agent and said that I really liked the script and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do in it. Every [character] felt very American to me, and I wasn’t sure at this particular point I wanted to play an American, week-in and week-out. My agent got back to [executive producers David and Jessica Goyer] and said that I responded to the script but I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do, and David and Jessica said, “Can we just meet him and pitch him ideas?”

What happened in that pitch meeting?
Essentially, I sat down with them and they said, “What do you want to do next?” Which is one of the greatest things to hear as an actor, you know. I said, “It’s very important for me to play a character different from the character I’m probably most known for in America, which is Charlie on Lost.” We broke down the essential things I wanted to do with the character: to play someone more dynamic and grown-up, someone who’s more proactive as opposed to reactive, to be more of a man than someone who’s becoming a man. And they said, “We can do that” and went away and came up with some ideas, and I met with them a week later, and they’d fleshed out this character that seemed like the perfect tonic to playing Charlie.

And you convinced them to let you keep your natural accent?
I’ll still talk like me, yeah.

I’m sure the other British actors on the show, like Joseph Fiennes and Sonia Walger, are kicking themselves for not negotiating that contract point.
You know, at some point in my career, I’m sure I’ll get the opportunity to play an American, but I wasn’t sure if now was the time. I felt like I wanted to push my Englishness on the American public a little bit more and have them accept it. [Laughs]

At the end of the first episode, we saw a silhouetted character on a security camera who had managed to avoid the worldwide blackout. Does your character have anything to do with him — or might that even be you?
No, I think that’s a bit of a red herring. People keep asking me, “Well, are you this guy, or this guy, or this guy?” I don’t actually show up in the show until [tonight’s episode], and then a little bit more in Episode 5. You’ll have to wait and see who I am.

Do you feel like you have more of a grip on your FlashForward character arc, as opposed to Lost, where you wouldn’t know crucial details about Charlie until you got the script?
A little bit. I think I know more where it’s going — I mean, they’ve told me stuff that I’ll be doing in the finale of season one. That’s definitely helpful. I have some things I need to know from my character’s point of view, but I don’t ask about the show, I don’t ask about the other characters, I just ask about things that involve my character Simon.

What’s it like for you to be shooting in LA after spending so much time on Lost and Lord of the Rings, two projects that filmed in such far-flung places?
It’s the first time in my career, since I started about sixteen years ago, that I’m actually working from my home. I can leave in the morning with my housekeys and come back at night to the same house. It’s good for me and it’s good for my pets that I can sleep in my own bed at night. It’s a normal experience and I’ve never had that before, so I’m trying to enjoy it as best I can. I have this memory after Lord of the Rings of packing my bags and leaving to make my fortune in Hollywood, so it’s interesting now that it’s come full circle and I am actually earning my wage in this city.

So do you like spending time in Los Angeles?
I like elements of it. I don’t like the traffic.

Well, because it sucks.
I don’t like the lack of a real sense of community, but I like the quality of the restaurants, and I like my friends out here. I like the different cuisines, I like that you can surf. I’m not kidding myself, though: I’m a young guy who’s got his focus set on a particular thing, and LA is the place for me to be right now.

There are pretty solid rumors out there that you’re returning to Lost for three episodes this season. Can you tell me anything about that?
Not really. [Laughs] You know, I’m good friends with Damon [Lindelof, Lost’s executive producer], and he and I spend time with each other just in our down time, you know? That inspires a lot of rumors, just when we have breakfast or lunch together. At this particular point, there’s not a lot I can tell you about it.

But would you be so cruel to cameo at the Lost Comic-Con panel and fan the flames of speculation without a pretty strong hint that you’d be coming back?
Mm-hmm. I would probably be on the Lost panel because I’m family and I know they want me to be back. Whether or not that fully transpires or not is going to be a different story.

When you’re killed off of a show like Lost and you see that public reaction to your death, what is it like? I always imagined it would be a bit like that scene in Tom Sawyer where he spies on his own funeral.
It was traumatic, you know? I had to go to a darker place to try to bring some of that darkness into the passing of Charlie. My personality was kind of affected by where my character went — it changed me, in a way. I think if you’ve held onto a character for several years and then you’re getting rid of that character, it’s going to be traumatic. It’s like graduating school or leaving university, it’s change. There’s a great quote by Leonard Cohen where he says “Everything cracks, it’s what lets the light in.” I think that kind of makes sense for me — in those times of change, we grow the most.