Emilie de Ravin on ‘Lost’ and ‘Roswell’

Thanks to RoswellMouse for this:

Emilie talks about the December 1st airing of the episode ‘Raised by Another’ on ‘Lost’, the backstory for her character, ‘Claire’. She also discusses her time on ‘Roswell’.

Claire of the lagoon
Emilie de Ravin gets ‘Lost’

By IAN SPELLING

Emilie de Ravin is preggers again. As the mysterious alien Tess on “Roswell,” the petite Australian actress gave birth to an alien/human hybrid child. And on ABC’s runaway hit “Lost” she plays Claire, a plane-crash survivor who’s eight months pregnant and stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere.

“We shoot ‘Lost’ in Hawaii, and it’s a little sweaty,” de Ravin says, “But it’s not too bad, really. The actual prosthetic stomach is hollow, so it aerates slightly. And I take it off when I can.

“Also, even though the beach is hot, there’s always a breeze in Hawaii,” she adds. “Everyone wants me to complain about the belly, but it’s not that terrible.”

Those words – “It’s not that terrible” – don’t apply to Claire’s dilemma. Not only is she surrounded by strangers, but also a polar bear has attacked the group, an even larger, still-unseen menace killed the plane’s captain and a radio is repeating a 16-year-old distress signal sent from the island.

A half-dozen episodes into the show’s run, Claire remains a low-key enigma. She rarely grouses and has befriended several of the more visible characters, notably de-facto leader Jack (Matthew Fox), fugitive Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and heroin-addicted rock star Charlie (Dominic Monaghan). De Ravin fans, however, will finally get their wish Dec. 1, with the Claire-centric episode “Raised by Another.”

“You’ll learn about her back story,” the 21-year-old de Ravin says in her thick Australian accent, speaking by telephone from her Los Angeles home. “I really don’t know how much I can say, but it’s a surprise, what her story is.

“What happens to her is cool and creepy, very creepy in a lot of ways,” she says. “Hopefully people will enjoy it.”

And what’s in store beyond “Raised by Another”?

“Something happens to Claire,” de Ravin says, bursting into a chuckle. “It’s not something I can talk about. I’ve had a few weeks off, because of some happenings. I’m going back to shoot more soon, but there’s not much to report there yet.

“A lot of it is still a mystery to me.”

In addition to heightening the on-island intrigue each week, “Lost” executive producers J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof pull back the curtain on a different character’s past in each episode. And there’s a common denominator to the revelations: Everyone, well before finding himself or herself on the island, was lost, either emotionally or in terms of their life’s path.

“That’s definitely something I’m seeing come through,” de Ravin says. “In a way, maybe this is all meant to be. Maybe they’re on the island for a reason. Maybe it’s fate and it’s going to help everyone, because everyone was dealing with the same issues.

“Maybe these people just needed to step back and look at their lives,” she continues, “and this is their opportunity to say, ‘I’m just lucky to be alive. I shouldn’t be worried about this and that.’ And their issues, the ones they had before, are much more irrelevant because of the situation they’re in now. Now they’re just trying to survive.”
“Lost” debuted Sept. 22, two weeks before the release of the second season of “Roswell” on DVD. The actress relocated from Australia to Los Angeles for the show, and her role as the shadowy alien who came between star-crossed lovers Max (Jason Behr) and Liz (Shiri Appleby) won her kudos and a fervent fan base.

“It was my first big job,” de Ravin says. “I got to move down here, to L.A. I was just 18. We had a great bunch of people on that show. I had a lot of creative input and worked with people I learned a lot from, people who were very helpful to me, me being new to the country and trying to figure things out. So I have fond memories of ‘Roswell.’ ”
When the WB network contemplated axing “Roswell” after Season One, fans successfully campaigned for a second year. When WB canceled the show after Season Two, the fans – by inundating UPN executives with letters, e-mails, petitions, trades ads and bottles of Tabasco sauce, a favorite alien condiment – convinced UPN to pick up the series.
And ever since UPN let the sun set on “Roswell,” the show’s followers have lobbied for a feature film. It wouldn’t be unprecedented: Joss Whedon’s sci-fi series “Firefly” flamed out fast, but a best-selling DVD collection has emboldened Universal to gamble on an upcoming “Firefly” film.

So why not “Roswell: The Movie?”
“People keep saying that and everyone keeps asking about it,” says de Ravin, who herself appears in the upcoming horror/comedy “Santa’s Slay.”

“But I don’t know anything. I’ve never heard anything official from the producers about a film. “I hadn’t realized it was such a talked-about subject,” she adds. “It’s an interesting idea.”

Returning to “Lost,” some fans fear that Claire isn’t long for this world. The IMDB doesn’t list de Ravin as a series regular, and that ominous title “Raised by Another” has some worrying that Claire may die giving birth. The actress welcomes the conspiracy theories, but says that the theorists are barking up the wrong tree.

“That’s not it, but the title is interesting,” de Ravin says. “I am a regular on ‘Lost.’ I think it’s great that people are so worried. It ups the excitement about what’s going to happen, and it means that people care about the character, which is what you want to hear when you’re playing a role.”