The Tail Section

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a variety of people from the LOST production both officially and unofficially and I’ve felt blessed every time, but when Daniel Roebuck (Doctor Leslie Arzt) agreed to an interview for the TheTailsection I was ecstatic.  You might think this is because I’ve been borrowing his character’s name as my nom de plume for the past couple of years, and you’d be correct up to a point, but what got me excited even more was when I visited Daniel’s website (www.danielroebuck.com) and saw his classic monster movie collection.  See whether you know this or not, your DocArzt - as in me - is a huge classic horror movie fan, so knowing that Daniel had achieved monster geekdom on a level I could I only dream of made me anxious to pick his brain on an entirely different level, and Dan was more than happy to oblige. As a result, the somewhere around forty minutes of interview we had was about 20% lost, 80% film geekdom and philosophy.  Since your probably here for the LOST portion, (am I right?), and my damn fingers are worn out from writing all night, I’m going to make the LOST portion available here in text, and the entire interview available in MP3.  I highly recommend you give the interview a listen as Dan is simply a pleasure to listen to.  Insightful, witty, and full of charisma.

In case you can’t use the Embedded player, here is a Download Link

Click on through for the text.

DocArzt:  So, the first question is… what is it like to be back on LOST?  Were you expecting this?

Daniel Roebuck:  Let me answer that question by telling you how it felt not to be on LOST, which was, you know,  I never watched the show until I was on the show, because I’m a megalomaniac, and then I watched the show after I had not been on it anymore and I was very bummed out because I love the show.  So when they called to say “We need you again”, I was very happy.

 … and you are definitely one of the most memorable, or actually THE most memorable side character for sure.  Arzt is a legend in the LOST mythology…

Well, I do enjoy… it’s been an interesting … because we paid attention to this because, you know, I’m a…  if your readers don’t know yet, I’m a bit of a geek.  I’m on the Internet sometimes looking for information like everybody else who loves what we love.   It was cool to play a character that actually got to be on the plane and be part of their [the 815’rs] memory, as opposed to a character who is part of one person’s memory. They’d never had - in the entire year when I got there -  a guest star actually on the island like that, that was from the plane crash.  There was Rousseau of course, and the other people on the island, but when there was a story with someone it was usually their back story.   To be there, and to be with them, and to work with all of them, it was neat.  So, Arzt was a great part.  My pal Carlton Cuse has done very well for me in my life, he’s given me two of the best parts I ever got to play, which was Arzt and Rick Bettina on “Nash Bridges”.

When you were given the part of Arzt, did you know it was going to be a short run?

I did.  I did. Yeah I knew it was three episodes.

They really kept that under wraps for the audience, they were like ‘Oh we’re introducing this new character, and he’s definitely going to have a major part in the story’, which… he did….

No, they’re brilliant, these guys are… well, smarter than I that’s for sure.  I mean I think they actually started convincing me I might be back! Even though I knew that wasn’t possible.  And I didn’t tell, I’ve gone on the record as saying this and it’s absolutely true, I didn’t tell anybody. My wife knew because I exclaimed when I read the script what happened, and my manager knew because, y’know, she had to know there would be no ongoing negotiations, but my kids didn’t know, my mom called the day the last episode aired because there was a write up in TVGuide that said “Daniel Roebuck joins the cast next year as a new series regular” and my mom said “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” I said “Just watch the show tonight, mom, and then we’ll talk.  It’s just too much information, we’ll talk about it later.”

So anyways.  I knew I was there and gone, so it was good to come back, it was nice to go down there and see my friends again.  I’m pretty respectful of all those actors.

It seems like it would be a really laid back set.

Oh, I absolutely think that is true.  You know in the first year they were all together, all the actors were together a lot of the time.  As the seasons have gone on the stories have kind of splintered up, and you don’t see them all together any more, as much.  So it was really neat to come down and see how much everybody enjoyed working with everybody.  It was very laid back, a lot of throwing footballs, I mean Jon, literally, you’re standing next to the ocean hanging out, laying on the beach, I mean this is what people pay to do.  It seems a little ironic that we’re there and we’re getting paid.  I’m sure at sometime Touchstone is going to be like “Hey what the hell are we doing?! Why don’t we just go ‘who wants to go to Hawaii on a vacation?’”

Does it surprise you - as someone who has been in the industry for a long time - that they continue to carry the expense of shooting it over in Hawaii?

Yeah!  It’s unbelievable that they make the show there.  I’m sure at some point there was some accountant who looks like Morocco Mole who walked out of an office and said “If we shoot it in Valencia, it’ll be sooo much cheaper.”, but calmer heads prevailed and they are still down there.  But you can’t duplicate that scenery, you just can’t.  There was a Vietnam show, oh gosh… what was it called…, anyways, they shot it in Valencia, and you always knew that the telephone pole was just outside the frame.  It looked nothing like Vietnam.   Nowhere here, even if you went to Malibu, it’s not going to look like Hawaii.

Is it safe to assume with this appearance of Arzt that we have seen the last of him, or will they bring you back in the future?

I think I can say that there have been indications that you have NOT, despite your desire Jon, seen the last of Doc Arzt.  Oh, I’m coming back.  Whether they want me to or not.  I’ll just go down to Hawaii, go to where they shoot, and just pop in scenes.  “I thought it would be great if Doctor Arzt was in this scene!”. “Uh, cut.  Dan, get out of the shot.”.  “Did you meet Doctor Arzt’s family?  I brought them…”  So, whether they want me to or not, I’ll be on that damn show.  How about that?

Is there anything you can say about how big a role Doc Arzt has in next weeks episode.

Absolutely.  I can tell you that I don’t remember. It’s weird, right before you get on the airplane they hold up this pen and a big red light comes out of it, like “Men in Black”.  I remember seeing people, I hung out with Jorge and Terry for a while, but I don’t remember a lot.

In general, do you get screen time throughout the episode?

I think it’s consistent to any episode, I don’t really remember, but there are a couple of faces in this episode that are nice to see.  What you will see is that Arzt really does, he might have been an idiot, but he really did know something about ‘some form’ of science. Something ‘crept’ through in his teaching.

That reminds me, they made a custom action figure of Arzt. (for photos visit www.danielroebuck.com)

I’ve got this good friend who has worked with me as a producer for a couple of projects as well, I do documentaries, I’m one of those guys who just can’t sit around, I’m not an actor who waits for the phone to ring, I’m making documentaries, or I’m writing something, or whatever, but Jesse Adams, my pal, I gave him some LOST trading cards in a binder. He had a company called ‘Highly flammable toys’ create that Doctor Arzt’s doll.  This guy did such a great job on it, it looks absolutely real.

I read somewhere that the backstory on the back of the box was actually written by the LOST writers?

Yeah, they wrote it and sent it to him.   How people came together to make this happen is very very nice.  I mean, it looks absolutely real.  It looks a hundred-percent real.  The weirder story, Jon, than that there is this fake LOST action figure is that, I guess at some point if I understand the story correctly, Jesse needed pictures of the back of my head for the guy to sculpt it and Kelly was looking though pictures to find a picture of the back of my head.  I was in New York shooting ‘Law & Order’ and one day I went to see some Broadway show, and people often say hello and introduce themselves and I’m very pleased to meet people who like what I do, so this guy is just staring at me, and I’m like “this is weird”.  So he says something like “I can’t believe I’m bumping into you.”  and I’m like ‘Well, I’m here doing ‘Law & Order’, and, uh, nice to meet you.”. Turns out, it was the same guy who was sculpting the figure, went to the same play that day, and literally ran into me.  So he could see what my head looked like! How weird is that?  Think of that in terms of the show that we all love, that is LOST weird.  Y’know, LOST coincidental.  A new phrase we should add into the dictionary.

Which of the writers was responsible for writing the back story for Doc Arzt?

I think Javier [Grillo Maxuach] wrote it.

So it is officially part of LOST canon….

Yeah!  Since they are never going to put out a Doc Arzt doll,  I am pleased that I have one that can fit in with the others.  We took them over to the office and gave one to Carlton and one to Damon, and one was the exploded Arzt, which was some arms and legs and he’d spray painted the blister card red from the inside. (laughs).  So it looked like the character already exploded.

Are you going to be at the fan party coming up?

I think I am! If people want to say hi or bring something to have it signed or whatever, whatever they want, they can.  And let your readers know they can always come to www.danielroebuck.com and get all kinds of information and photos.  We’ve actually been playing with this idea of putting my personal LOST photo album up there. That should be up in a few weeks.