Matthew in Details Magazine
Matthew is on the cover of the new issue of Details Magazine. Click here to watch a video clip of the cover shoot and head over to the Lost Forum for magazine scans by the wonderful MWT.
In a nondescript garage on a dead-end street in an industrial neighborhood south of Los Angeles, a half-dozen motorheads gaze in reverence at the time-warped creature that sits before them, a visitor from a distant era when men were men and horsepower was the ultimate in masculine cool. “This thing,” says Fast Ed the upholstery guy, “is going to be a monster.” The man standing next to him, beer in hand, nods idly, but his mind is elsewhere. He’s here for only a few days, and there’s much to be done. The Grand National Roadster Show at the Fairplex in Pomona is less than three months away. The 502-horsepower big-block Chevy engine has yet to be installed, and the avocado-colored bull leather must still be stitched into the interior. Right now, Matthew Fox’s attention is riveted on the automotive artisan intently laying pin-striped tape in flowing flame shapes onto the bulbous ebony flanks of a sweetly sinister 1950 Mercury.
“They’re going to be ghost flames, pearl-green—you’ll hardly see them,” Fox says. “If you put a flame job on it that’s not right, it’ll fuck everything up.”
In a black blazer, white T-shirt, and black jeans, with touches of gray flecking the tops of his sideburns, he’s absurdly handsome in person, way too modelesque for the surroundings. But he’s supremely at ease amid the litter of the shop, the oil and machinery and half-restored carcasses of Studebakers and Porsches. On this day, his garage band of brothers seems to know him only as one of its own: a guy with the good taste—and sufficient funds—to restore a true Detroit classic.
7 Questions with Matthew Fox
Fred Topel: Now that the strike is over and you can shoot a few more episodes of Lost, what is the feeling on the set?
Matthew Fox: Panic. [Laughs] No, it’s been chaotic, as it always is this time of year for us. I mean, we’re doing many shows. I think we’re shooting three episodes simultaneously, so it’s anywhere between two and three units working at the same time. Going back and forth between them and shooting things very out of sequence, which you always do, but like when you’re covering three episodes, it’s a lot. But it’s great. It’s really great.
Fred Topel: With only a few episodes left, is there still time to really forward the story?
Matthew Fox: Oh, yeah. You won’t believe what happens in the next five episodes. The show is building to its climax of the year and a lot of things are happening and it’s big and it’s going to be good. I think it’s been a good year for us. The strike, obviously, was difficult, just because we were really on a roll through [episode] eight, then we took this break. But I think everybody was really excited to get back to it.
Fred Topel: Is doing the flash forward stuff very different for you?
SPEED ZONE: Matthew Fox on Racer X
Matthew Fox, who plays Racer X in the upcoming “Speed Racer” film, was really excited to jump into the role based on the classic animated series. When he first met the directors, Larry and Andy Wachowski, “They were basically warning me,” Fox told CBR News. “This [costume’s] going to be really intense. It’s going to be leather. It’s going to be hot. You’re going to do action sequences in it and you’re not going to have any use of your eyes as an actor. Are you worried about that?”
Fox’s response: “I’m not worried about it. I’m so fired up for the challenge.”
The actor’s initial interest in the project came from the Wachowskis themselves, but in meeting with them he learned the filmmakers wanted to make “a movie their nephews and nieces could see,” in contrast to their R-rated “The Matrix” trilogy.