When HBO presented a panel for “The Leftovers” to the Television Critics Association earlier this year, Damon Lindelof told reporters that the characters on his new show wouldn’t be focused on solving the mystery.
It’s a mysterious situation for sure. Based on Tom Perrotta’s book, “The Leftovers” takes place three years after a portion of the population just disappeared. Lindelof said the focus of “The Leftovers” would be on the people left behind trying to live their lives without answers. After the panel, I joined several other reporters to ask Lindelof more questions about the show, which premieres this Sunday, June 29 on HBO.
CraveOnline: You’re speaking my language because I’m tired of shows that are looking for answers to some mystery. Will I be happy with “The Leftovers,” to just get to live in this world?
Damon Lindelof: That’s my hope. I do think that the show would be neglect in not examining the mystery of where everybody went and what happened to them. In the show, there are going to be characters who are interested in finding more out about that, but the show is much more focused on the present than it is in the past. I’m much more interested in are we going to get attacked by terrorists again, versus who are the terrorists responsible for this act?
Are you definitively saying you won’t answer what the disappearance is?
No, I’m not saying that at all. Nobody asked me that.
You spoke about emphasizing the characters moving on with their lives, rather than explaining the mystery. Will you ever explain what happened?
I think what I’d say is the question that you are asking right now is the fundamental question of the series for the characters in the series. So everybody in this world is asking, “Am I ever going to get an answer to where these people went? Am I ever going to get relief?” And if I tell the audience or you that yes, the answer is coming, then I’ve given you a piece of information that the characters don’t have, and therefore you’re not going to be able to identify with these people because as they’re walking around in the show going, “I don’t think we’re ever going to get an answer,” you’re sitting in your living room saying, “Yeah, yeah, Lindelof said it was coming. Just be patient. Chill out.”
I think the anxiety that they’re experiencing as a result of not knowing whether or not they’re going to get an answer is anxiety that I want the audience to be experiencing. I understand that I’m putting my head in a hive of bees, but it’s Tom’s fault. He wrote the book.
Do you worry if you don’t give the answers, you’d have a repeat of “Lost?”
All I can say is I didn’t want to do “Lost” again, but the things that drew me to the premise of “Lost” are the same things that drew me to this premise. I hope that the viewing experience is not completely and totally dependent on the resolution of this show. I feel like “Lost” was very much presented as a mystery show and had characters on the show that were actively trying to determine what the island was, why they had been brought to the island, what the purpose of it all was.
Therefore the show had to present some version of those answers. It’s not my place to say that there was an empirical response to “Lost.” I know there were a lot of people who were frustrated with the way the show ended. There are other people who were not frustrated with the show ended and there are a lot of people who gave up before the show ended. I think that the same will be true of “The Leftovers” and there’s no way that I could guarantee otherwise.
How did the show fit your strengths as a writer, and how did it push you outside of your comfort zone?
Well, first off, I think the idea that it’s a straight up adaptation. It’s a book that I loved and coming to Tom and saying, “Can we play together in your world? Here are some ideas I had and what do you think of them?” definitely puts me outside of my comfort zone because I’ve not really adapted television before. And I think the sense of how much story is there here? It’s a novel, so technically speaking this could’ve been a movie if you just straight up adapted the novel. What makes it a TV series?
And with the “Lost” legacy, how long should it go on? How many episodes of “The Leftovers” should there be? Where does the frustration point start to set in? I think the comfort zone is essentially I am stepping back into that abyss that many would argue burned me last time, but for me was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. While I think there are going to be a lot of new surprises along the way, I get turned on creatively by what I get turned on creatively by. I have a type in terms of TV shows.
Is the reason people may think it’s The Rapture that all the good people got taken away?
I think that you ask an interesting question. The reason that some people think that it’s The Rapture is that The Rapture is the only pre-existing concept that could possibly explain this phenomenon. But when they try to attach the rules of The Rapture, an immense debate breaks out because even amongst evangelicals, the idea of what is The Rapture, what is the timing of The Rapture?
We know that it’s a lead up to the End of Days, but it does seem to have this idea in mind of the people who disappear were all really good people. But a lot of a**holes went too. Not just a**holes but really, really bad people. Is the idea that there’s a moral judgment in play but our idea of morality is slightly skewed, so these things that we think are good and bad, like not cheating on your wife or murdering people, may be not that big of a deal to whoever decided to make this cut.
So no one will mistake “The Leftovers” for Left Behind.
I think it’s playing in a much different world than Left Behind. You might hear the word “antichrist,” but in an entirely different context.
