When actress Sheila Kelley was introduced last week on Lost wearing a pair of sympathetic spectacles and exhibiting a desperate need to know just what the hell is happening on this island, she could have been a stand-in for any number of audience members -- so what were we to make of her after she turned a gun on Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and revealed that she actually knows way more than we do? Kelley herself caused quite the online stir yesterday when she told Us that she'd seen the finale and that her name was on every page of it, leading many blogs to believe that her character, Zoe, had somehow come from nowhere to end up in every single scene of Lost's final episode. As she told Movieline, not quite.
"Ay, yi, yi!" said Kelley. "You really have to be careful to say things very clearly in this last season of Lost-mania. What I I said was my name is on every page of the scripts that they have sent me for security reasons. I haven't been sent the final script as of today. Yes, I did see it in the hands of the director, but I have not looked at the goodies inside yet."
Kelley also clarified that though Zoe's got an elaborate backstory that she teased in the Us interview, much of it was constructed by the actress herself.
"Zoe was described to me as a very loyal and super bright geo-physicist who works with [mysterious villain] Charles Widmore," she said. "That's about all they told me, so creating her back story and her motivations were totally up to me, and I went all out with that task as I am an actor who likes to have many layers and levels from which to build a character. I believe she is a strategic thinker who is used to getting exactly what it is she wants. I believe she has someone on the island that she is trying to find."
So far, Kelley has shot six episodes of the show -- which is six more episodes of it than she had seen when she was offered the role in November: "The day the role was offered to me I sat myself down in front of my computer and watched the first three shows back-to-back on Netflix," she confessed. "To say I was hooked is an understatement. It's like a drug called Lostdonia. If I haven't gotten my Lost fix I don't feel my week is complete. I can't settle on which character I am most invested in. One day I'm all so Sawyer and the next I'm a Kate, then a week goes by and I'm into Jack and then Locke. It's like being a kid in a candy shop with so many great characters to choose from."
Whether or not she'd be sharing any screen time with those characters is something Kelley couldn't divulge, though she had nothing but good things to say about the scenes she's already played with Holloway. "I had a most wickedly wonderful time playing opposite Josh," she said, "and not only because he is very talented and committed actor but because he plays a mean guitar between takes and is most entertaining!"
Kelley is no stranger to series television, having played Gwen Taylor on L.A. Law for three years (she's also married to The West Wing star Richard Schiff). Still, her last TV gig before Lost was an unconventional one: Thanks to her side business creating pole dance exercise routines called "S Factor," Kelley was called on to coach Teri Hatcher through one for an episode of Desperate Housewives. I asked Kelley if she'd found any use for her expertise on Lost.
"What S Factor pole dancing gives a woman is a sense of body power and confidence like nothing I have ever done before," she said. "Zoe is a woman who lives fully in her body without apology or fear. She's a force to reckon with and S Factor gave me a taste of that kind force. I don't know...something happens when you hang upside down from a pole 14 feet off of the floor and slither down to the ground like a snake."
As for those glasses, the 30 Rock fan is happy about the inevitable comparison fans are making.
"The island's very own Tina Fey? Cool, so then maybe I could be Liz Lemon's evil twin sister Lily Lemon on 30 Rock! Or better yet, Tina Fey could come take one of my S Factor Pole Dance classes...and then Liz Lemon would do a hell of a lap dance which would seal the deal on her new non-beau, Wesley, or send him running back to Queen Elizabeth!"