Lost Creators Apologize For “Trauma” and “Hurt” Caused During The Series Production

Lost remains one of the biggest hit series in television history – but a new book is about to reveal just how toxic of an environment there was when making the show. Veteran entertainment reporter Maureen Ryan is about to release her new book Burn It Down (Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood), a deep-dive exposé into the making of Lost, and all the things that were wrong with that work environment. The long-short of it was that, based on numerous interviews (and a word cloud of terms based on those interviews), it seems many actors of color and/or female cast and crew members felt that showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse both fostered a hostile work environment and had certain biases that influenced who got the most to do in the show. 

Ryan took the time to sit down with both Lindelof and Cuse and get their sides fo the story for the book. Cuse expressed major regret that there were so many people who came away viewing working on Lost as such a terrible experience:  

“It breaks my heart to hear it. It’s deeply upsetting to know that there were people who had such bad experiences,” Cuse said in a statement to Ryan, while still alleging that he saw no evidence of such problems while on set: “I did not know people were feeling that way. No one ever complained to me, nor am I aware that anybody complained to ABC Studios. I wish I had known. I would have done what I could to make changes.”

Damon Lindelof, on the other hand, was much more upfront about the fact the work environment on Lost wasn’t the most healthy one – and seemed ready to take accountability for his part in it: 

“The way that I conduct myself and the way that I treat other humans who I am responsible for and a manager of is a by-product of all the mistakes that were made,” Lindelof said. “I have significantly evolved and grown, and it shouldn’t have had to come at the cost and the trauma of people that I hurt on Lost.”

At the same time, Lindelof did echo Cuse in expressing the sentiment that he wasn’t as keenly aware of the negativity he was causing on set as some might believe: 

“Would it shock you to learn or believe that, despite the fact that I completely and totally validate your word cloud, that I was 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?” Lindelof asked Ryan. “Do you feel like I knew the whole time and just kept doing it?”

Lost has a long, sordid history of scandals behind the scenes – and not all of them are related to the showrunners. Multiple cast members of the show made headlines for arrests during six seasons of filming in Hawaii – including numerous DUI charges. The more information that comes to light over subsequent years seems to suggest that the overabundance of trust in showrunners, the massive resources thrown at the show, and the isolated shoots in Hawaii, resulted in a wildly unsupervised environment that left many with a bad taste in their mouths.  

Maureen Ryan via Vanity Fair