A Half-Hour with Lost's Most Compelling (Living) Character

Thanks to Zach for sending this great interview with Michael Emerson.

There are some spoilers on the full article.

Ben's a teacher in this new timeline we're seeing. How the hell does the schemer, the plotter, the master manipulator in Ben get satisfaction teaching high school history? Is that the same Ben we've been watching for four years?
What's interesting about these flash-sideways—or whatever you want to call them, these parallel realities—is that all the characteristics of your personality are there, but the mix is different. Everyone has the same set of characteristics, but in wildly varying quantities. We look for the characteristics we're accustomed to, and the payoff is that we find them, but we find them altered.

This was something the writers and directors told you.
This is just my personal analysis after having played a lot of it—because there's more of it to come. I don't know which storyline is truer; I don't know if one is more real than the other. But that answer is presumably to come.

Glad we're in the same boat.
Absolutely. I read the stuff online—the speculations, the questions, the frustrations. It completely echoes the discussions we have when we're sitting around on the set.

Well, your glasses are different as a teacher. So whatever happened with the hydrogen bomb, we know it affected Ben's eyewear.
Oh, that's right. How'd that happen?

Tell me. Just tell me! I feel like you're tricking me into blowing up the submarine.
[silence]

Fine. Let's stick with the minutiae theme: Every move you make on this show is intensely scrutinized by fans. If you look at someone a beat too long, or you emphasize a line a certain way, it's going to take on significance on the Web.
The answer to that is, make sure that everything you do is purposeful. Make sure there aren't any accidents that run counter to the impression you're trying to give, or the storyline. If people are tracking eyeglasses, though, I might have a little trouble. I have a different pair for Ben in each timeline, plus my own personal wire-rim glasses. What would happen if you went to work one day, wearing your own spectacles, and you forgot to change into your work spectacles?

So how much filming do you have left?
Four episodes; a little less than two months. I came to Hawaii this weekend for a Vanity Fair photo shoot but I'm going back to L.A. tomorrow—they don't need me for another ten days. I've had three episodes off, which is really unusual...

Source: Full Interview @ GQ