Carrie Preston : tv.com

To celebrate the end of Lost, the show's cast and crew gathered in Los Angeles last Thursday for Lost Live: The Final Celebration. Before the event, I snagged interviews with as many actors as I could get to on the red carpet. 

I can’t say for sure, but I think you might be the only actress to play the mother of your real-life spouse on television.

Yes, yes.

 

Can you talk a bit about that experience? Even though you didn’t play Ben’s mother at his current age?

Not as his current age, but yes. It was actually my sick idea. I just thought it would be—they had been wanting to get me as a guest star on the show, and I thought it would be much more if I got to do a character who was connected to Michael in some way. And so I made this offhand joke, like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if when they did your flashback, I played your mom?” And we laughed, and he mentioned it to the producers. And then a week later, I was giving birth in the jungle—to my husband.

 

How do you and Michael influence each other as actors?

I think we’re very supportive of each other. We don’t get in each other’s way. We really don’t talk about the work that much, except to sort of praise each other and be supportive. We are not the types to sit around and run scenes together. Every once in a while, if I’m having trouble with something, I’ll ask him to have a look at it. But we kind of like to keep it away from the marriage.

 

So is there any chance of Michael playing a family member of Arlene’s on True Blood?

I think that would be really fun. I mean, it would be fun to have him on the show, but it would be really fun if he played something that had to do with my character, like a little reciprocity for what I did on his show.

 

Have you followed the book series? Do you know Charlaine Harris’ version of Arlene’s story?

I haven’t read all of them, because we did start departing so much from the books that it was kind of like, well, I don’t know. But at the same time, it is good to know where the books are going. Like, I’ve come up with some fun ideas that I’ve talked to Alan [Ball] about and other people have said, “Well, in the books this happens.” It’s just fun to have a dialog about it.