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
Damon Lindelof quotes about
Lost is a mystery show, so I think that would be stripping the franchise of sort of its essential nature.
For us, there's an inherent process when you're ending something to be thinking about the beginning, as writers.
I think the idea that television has evolved to this place of real thematic richness and the fact that you no longer have to get 10 million people to watch your show in order to propagate its survival are the best things that have ever happened to storytelling in this medium.
But I do think that, when you slow the conveyor belt down, the quality control tends to go up. You have a lot more time between seasons to talk about what worked and what didn't work, and plan for the future. And the pacing of the storytelling, particularly for on-going serialized dramas, means that you don't need to do non-essential episodes, just because you have to fill this pre-existing schedule.
Good twists are enormously hard to come by, and I think the best ones are earned ones. The idea that a story can take a left turn on you, it's easy to do, but it has to be done very, very carefully, or else you risk losing the audience's trust.
I think that, at the end of the day, I'm drawn to a certain level of ambiguous storytelling that requires hard thought and work in the same way that the 'New York Times' crossword puzzle does: Sometimes you just want to put it down or throw it out the window, but there's a real rewarding sense if you feel like you've cracked it.
We all look at ourselves in the mirror and think, 'Am I good?
Reputation is a very interesting thing, and I always give people the benefit of the doubt, and I think that there's a part of all of us, especially in a generation where a lot of the stuff gets recorded.
I think 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy has a very satisfying ending, and there's not really that deep of a mythological construct.
I don't think anybody wants to see a dour 'Star Trek' movie.
I remember what it was like to be doing 'Lost' and how creatively immersive it was. I just couldn't really engage on anything else, other than 'Lost;' I was just thinking about it all the time, and then there was just the pure workload, the 70- or 80-hour weeks.
I don't think it's hubris for me to say I'm a Trek fan. So, I don't treat Trek fans as somebody who's separate than I am. The only thing that separates them is, I'm one of the people responsible for the story in this movie and they're not. But we're all Trek fans. I can hang.
I was born in 1973, so I did not see 'Alien' when it was released theatrically. I saw 'Alien' when it was on Home Box Office. I think I was probably 10.
I'm not sitting around thinking of ideas for TV shows.