Cast Trivia - Jeff Fahey
- He was born and raised in New York, as the sixth of thirteen children.
- His father’s name is Frank.
- At age seventeen, he left home and soon hitchhiked to Alaska. He later backpacked through Europe, worked on a kibbutz in Israel, and drove an ambulance in Germany. He also lived in India.
- While doing experimental theater in New York, he as invited to take ballet and quickly developed a great passion for it. After just eight months, at age 25, he won a full scholarship to dance with the world-renowned Joffrey Ballet. He performed with the company for three years.
- Dance led him to musical performances, including the national tour of Oklahoma and Paris’ West Side Story.
- Before breaking into television and movie roles, he sold vacuum cleaners and taught ballroom dance.
- He has three brothers in the movie business: Mike who is a grip, Kevin who is a gaffer and Dennis who is a driver.
- He stared in Grindhouse with Naveen Andrews and Cold Heart with Josh Holloway.
- Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said that Jeff was their first and only choice for the role of Frank Lapidus. Damon liked his “intense eyes”, and has said that “he has exactly the right sensibilities.”
- When the producers contacted him, he had taken a break from acting and was living in Afghanistan to assist an orphanage. He had never seen a single minute of Lost before, but was convinced to join the cast after producers summarized the first three seasons for him. He was very excited to move to Hawaii and has since called the opportunity “a dream.”
- Lapidus wasn’t originally envisioned with a beard, and the producers were surprised to see that he had grown one. They let him keep it for season 4, but asked that it be shortened a bit.
- Even during the filming of Lost, he’d frequently travel back to Afghanistan to support the orphanage, whenever his character didn’t appear in a week’s episode.
- He recently began working with refugee camps in Western Sahara.
- After his character appeared to die in the submarine explosion, Jeff told several reporters that his character was definitely dead, even though he already knew that wasn’t true.
Quotes:
“A lot of times, you don’t want to know everything. The very thing that would make you feel uncomfortable on other jobs — not knowing the arc of the character or the story — on something like Lost, the unknowing actually helps out sometimes.”
“In the three seasons I was on the island, I never experienced one moment of discomfort. I loved every person in all departments; writers, directors, producers, the wonderful cast and great crew. I can’t even consider it working. It was like three seasons of a paid vacation.”
(on his favorite line as Lapidus) “There were so many. I loved the way they wrote him, with the one liners. But everybody loved the line about Guam.”
Q: Carlton Cuse once said about you, “He has the most intense eyes of any guy out there, and I say that as a non-gay man.” Would you like to return the compliment?
Jeff: Tell him I love him, too. And I’m straight.
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