Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelofis an American television writer, producer, and film screenwriter, most noted as the co-creator and showrunner of the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordanand wrote for Nash Bridges. Lindelof also co-wrote the science fiction films Cowboys & Aliens, Prometheus, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Tomorrowland. He co-created the TV series The Leftovers for HBO, adapted from the novel by Tom Perrotta...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth24 April 1973
CityTeaneck, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
You can watch an episode of Friends or an episode of Law & Order and just drop in, but you're not going to in the middle of Season 4, Episode 5 of Lost. It's like picking up a Harry Potter book and flipping to a chapter. You have to read it from beginning to end.
As a storyteller, you also don't want to make people feel like they're left out, like other people who have read the book have an interior knowledge of this show, and the degree of difficulty in watching it is much higher.
Whenever we do a story or we show the monster or we find the hatch, that all has to be consistent with what we know the ending to be. We have a goal that we are working towards.
What's in the hatch is so intense/cool/complicated that it actually takes three full episodes to fully understand it. Fortunately, these are the first three episodes of the show, so the wait is over!
If you're constantly hamstrung by worry that people aren't going to like it, you can't do your job.
I've always been into having stories told to me. I was a voracious reader, my father was also a teller of tales; and the kind of Baron Munchausen proxy of a tall tale was much more interesting than a true tale.
Lost is a mystery show, so I think that would be stripping the franchise of sort of its essential nature.
At some point, you can't take a risk just to take a risk because that's a betrayal, in and of itself.
For us, there's an inherent process when you're ending something to be thinking about the beginning, as writers.
Part of the fun of the movie is understanding exactly why we called it Prometheus. And also, it sounds really pretentious, like Inception, so we were just like, "Yeah, that makes the movie sound really smart!" It's so much better then my original title, Explosion. Well, there might be an explosion in the movie.
Suffice it to say, there are some very big ideas in Prometheus and, therefore, it covers a very vast expanse of time.
One of the things I've learned is there's no lesson to be learned. You have to resign yourself to the fact that mistakes are going to be made at any time in the creative process.
I'm a huge Star Trek fan. I've seen all the shows, I've seen all the movies, but ultimately I just want a 2-hour movie that takes me to another time and place - something that entertains me.
If you do something awesome, you should be proud of yourself.