Naveen Andrews didn’t always play killers! In Bride and Prejudice, a 2004 musical Bollywood adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, he played a role based on Mr. Bingley (Darcy’s friend). This clip shows him in an elaborate dance number:
Naveen discussed his preparation for the role in an interview with about.com conducted shortly before the film was released in the U.S.:
Q: What training did you have for the musical numbers?
NA: Oh Christ, well they had the choreographer, Saroj Khan, who does all those Bollywood films and is the best in her field. And I had to train nine hours a day for about 40 weeks trying to get this s**t done. It’s like traditional Indian dance coupled with M.C. Hammer from the early ‘90s, which has to be seen to be believed.
Q: Would you display your dance skills in a club?
NA: Absolutely not.
Too bad!
Here’s something very funny. Someone took the Bride and Prejudice dance number and used it to make a mash-up with the scene in LOST where Sayid tortured Sawyer:
Not the dancing! Oh no! I’ll tell you anything, just don’t make me watch any more dance! Hah.
The mash-up was made by RemieVander; Bride and Prejudice (c) Pathé Pictures International
A short excerpt of this first video was featured in the fan-made video montage shown in Comic-Con. Here’s the whole thing. It’s a brilliant, funny, manic recap of Season 2, set to Weird Al Yankovic’s “Alternative Polka.” The video was made by Robert Montjoy, aka CapnBob.
The previous year, CapnBob had made a video recapping Season 1 to the tune of Weird Al’s version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” While this one didn’t make Comic-Con, it is my all-time absolute favorite fan-made video ever. Did I mention how much I love this video? Okay, then. Carry on, carry on:
This next video isn’t LOST-related, but just because I can’t get the song out of my head now, here is Queen with the late great amazing Freddy Mercury singing “Bohemian Rhaposdy” at the Live Aid concert in 1985:
UPDATE 3/4/10: At last week’s PaleyFest, Darlton said Mr. Eko was not coming back, according to an article in TV Guide. (Warning: the TV Guide article is FULL of spoilers.)
UPDATE 5/28/10 Kristin dos Santos at E! Online is reporting that unnamed “ABC and Lost insiders” told her that Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was offered a spot in the finale, but he turned it down because it wasn’t enough money — and that he had asked for five times as much as what was offered.
original post below:
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Season 6 seems to be shaping up to be a big reunion for formerly dead characters.
One character I never thought we’d see again, though, is Mr. Eko. Word was that Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who played Mr. Eko, had quit the show, forcing the producers to ditch the storyline they had planned and to kill off the character prematurely.
Yet in a recent video interview with the British magazine site Empire, Akinnuoye-Agbaje was coy. He didn’t say he was coming back, but he definitely wasn’t ruling it out:
Q: So what are you working on next. There’s rumors of LOST …
AAA: Yeah, I just shot a guest episode with Tony Shalhoub from Monk, and yes, there are rumors circulating about LOST. I don’t know where they are coming from, but they are building up, yes. You know, with that show anything can happen, and the fans really liked Mr. Eko. It might be nice to see him wield the stick one more time.
Back in November 2006, the day after Mr. Eko died on the show, USA Today reported that “Akinnuoye-Agbaje asked to be written off the series. After losing both parents last year, he wanted to return to his London home and work on a film he’ll direct.”
Two years later, at the 2008 Screenwriting Expo, Damon Lindelof gave a slightly different version of the story, saying that Akinnuoye-Agbaje had not liked living in Hawaii:
Discussing how Mr. Eko became a much shorter-lived character than originally intended, Lindelof noted how it stemmed from actor Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who did not like living in Hawaii. Lindelof said, ” Our Mr. Eko plans very quickly derailed. Adawele’s unhappiness was almost instantaneous. On his second episode, he was expressing extreme dissatisfaction.” This led to them quickly changing Mr. Eko’s storyline to one that would only last one season. Asked what might have happened with Eko had he been the long term character he was going to be, Lindelof answered, “Originally he was going to be someone who challenged Locke for the spiritual leadership of the castaways.”
Whatever happened back then, Adewale seems interested in coming back to the show now. If we are lucky, all will be forgiven, he will be invited back, and perhaps we will finally find out how his original story would have ended.
Picture of Mr. Eko is a promotional still (c) ABC, via Lostpedia
Last week, during an interview with Access Hollywood at Comic-Con, Ian Somerhalder said he was coming back.
AH: Fans of LOST obviously are wondering, because they were saying a lot of the people are going to be brought back for the final season, are you one of them?
IS: I literally two minutes ago walked out of a Green Room with Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof —
AH: Oh you did?
IS: — and, yes.
AH: So that means you will be back in some capacity?
IS: We are gonna work it out.
AH: Nice!
IS: Yes.
AH: Okay, that’s fantastic… When will you actually have time to film something like that? [Ian will be starring in the new show Vampire Diaries starting this fall.]
IS: That we don’t know. That’s what they were just talking about, literally… It’s going to be red-eye from Atlanta, go to set, work.
So there you have it. Boone is coming back — or at least the actor who plays him thinks that he is.
And what about Shannon? No word yet, except that Maggie Grace said she was going to Hawaii for a vacation. Hmmm.
Dominic Monaghan at Comic-Con holding up hand which appears to say "Am I Alive?"
E! Online is saying that they have exclusive info, from unnamed sources, that Charlie, played by Dominic Monaghan, will be back for three more episodes.
I’m working on a new grand theory of almost everything (ha!), and when I think about that, I find myself drawn back again to the first scene of the Season 5 Finale. There’s so much packed into that scene which seems to provide critical clues to what LOST is really all about.
In particular, I wanted to look more closely at one bit of the scene, the part where Jacob and Esau (the Man in Black) talk about the approach of the sailing ship.
Jacob: I take it you’re here because of the ship.
Esau: I am. (Pause) How did they find the Island?
Jacob: You’ll have to ask them when they get here.
Esau: I don’t have to ask. (Looks at Jacob) You brought them here. (Pause) Still trying to prove me wrong, aren’t you?
Jacob: You are wrong.
Esau: Am I? (Pause) They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.
Jacob: It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.
What conclusions can be drawn from that?
1. Jacob has the power to bring people to the Island — or at least Esau thinks that he does.
2. This is not the first group of people to come to the Island. Esau, sounding weary, says it “always ends the same,” which implies that similar scenarios have happened many times before.
3. Either Jacob and Esau are in a time loop, and the fighting, destroying, and corrupting groups that Esau refers to are groups from the future (the Others, the Dharma Initiative, the 815-ers), or else Jacob and Esau have been on the Island for a very long time, long enough to see many other groups come and go in the past. I’m betting on the second scenario.
4 There is some sort of linear progression. Jacob says “It only ends once.” Even if time loops are involved, we are still dealing with a story that has a beginning, a middle, and most importantly, an end.
5. Jacob believes that Esau is wrong about something, and though we don’t know exactly what, we know that Esau is cynical, world-weary, and resigned, and expects nothing but trouble from the many visitors to the Island. Jacob expects something more. But what is it that he expects?
I believe that LOST is a story about redemption and atonement. I think that is what Jacob is working towards, and that is why he keeps on bringing groups to the Island, over and over until some group finally gets it right. (I’ll be writing more about this later, as I work out my theory.)
Here’s a clip of the scene. Each time I’ve watched it, I’ve noticed something new:
