Writers, Cast Talk Racism, Toxicity on LOST
Several writers and actors, including Harold Perrineau, have opened up about the racism, toxicity and more that they allegedly experienced on the set of ‘LOST.’
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- Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) May 30, 2023
Shocking no one, cast, crew, and writers from LOST talk about the massive amount of racism, favoritism, and general toxicity that went on behind the scenes.
- Interviews more than a dozen people who worked on Lost in various capacities across all six seasons, half of whom were people of color and more than half of whom were women.
- "Perrineau and Sloan told me that the cast had discussions about holding firm and asking for equal pay when salary renegotiations with ABC Studios began. According to both, promises were made to present a united front. ... Ultimately, the cast ended up in a series of compensation tiers, and Perrineau and Sloan said the highest tier was occupied solely by white actors."
- Writing staff was told repeatedly who the “hero characters” were: Locke, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, all of whom were white
- Harold Perrineau's leaving and subsequent interviews calling out the racism in his storyline and the fallout from that are discussed.
- Many talk about the excitement and thrill they started out with, only to end up “I can only describe it as hazing. It was very much middle school and relentlessly cruel. And I’ve never heard that much racist commentary in one room in my career”
- The only Asian American writer was called Korean, as in, “Korean, take the board.”
- About Mr. Eko's (played by Black actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) death scene: “Carlton said something to the effect of, ‘I want to hang him from the highest tree. God, if we could only cut his dick off and shove it down his throat.’"
- The show would poke fun at Tallahassee, which prompted their mayor to invite the show’s personnel to visit and enclosed brochures touting the city’s attractive qualities. “In response, Damon told the writers room to double down on Tallahassee, and when asked why, he replied with a straight face that the only thing funnier than punching someone in the face for no reason is punching them harder when they ask why”
- During her time at Lost, Hsu Taylor learned to keep eyeliner in her desk at the office: “You don’t want to have to go to the bathroom to redo your eyeliner. If you cry at work, you don’t want people to see that you’ve been crying.”
- [After a later season episode that the showrunners didn't write on became highly praised] Cuse and Lindelof called Nations and Hsu Taylor into a room, and she recalled that they “basically [told] us how much we owed them for letting us have our names on that script. And they implied it would probably be good if we got them a little present.” So Hsu Taylor went out and bought gifts for her bosses.
- “I was up next in the rotation-I was supposed to write one of the upcoming episodes. We were in the writers room. I remember Carlton walking around the table” while doling out script assignments. Hsu Taylor recalled feeling that he was making sure everyone was fully aware that he was skipping her.
- “We were taken out to lunch by executives and told there was no racism-it was just bullying,” Owusu-Breen told me. “It was fascinating to me, because what do you think racism is?”
- Of course, Cuse and Lindelof "did not know people were feeling that way" and were "oblivious, largely oblivious, to the adverse impacts that I was having on others in that writers room during the entire time that the show was happening"
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