Michael Emerson against a backdrop of creepy hands for Evil
The Big Picture When preparing to talk to acclaimed actor Michael Emerson, some apprehension is to be expected. After all, this is someone who Rolling Stone once proclaimed as their #1 greatest TV villain of all time for his seminal performance as Benjamin Linus in Lost, to say nothing of the great characters he's gone on to portray since.
"I was originally engaged to do a three-episode arc," Emerson tells me, "and somewhere along the line, even before I got to Hawaii, it seemed like it grew a little." While he points out that any questions about a grander plan for his character, and how that evolved, should rightly be directed to Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, he reveals that the role of Ben Linus initially felt like "a kind of working audition.
I can't help but jump in then with a question I always try to ask actors who tend to inhabit more antagonistic characters: does Ben Linus, at any point, ever think that he's the bad guy of Lost? If anyone would have insight into what makes a good villain, it's Emerson. "Bad guys never think they're the bad guys," he asserts. "People do all sorts of terrible things in this life, and no one considers themselves to be the villain of their narrative.
Yet Emerson reveals that, while Evil's new streaming home did give the show's writers more leeway to be bold, there have been a handful of instances where he's balked at a script: "Call it prudishness or something, but there are a couple of places where I feared to tread.
By and large, Evil has been a show of many unexpected firsts for Emerson, who estimates that he's been "blasted with or emitted a dozen different fluids over the years," from devouring a demon's still-beating heart to vomiting during an exorcism . The worst out of all of them, though? The projectile vomit of the Antichrist, a demon newborn who takes center stage in Evil's fourth season. "That was pea soup, actually," Emerson divulges.
Michael Emerson Teases the End of 'Evil' Unfortunately, February brought the news that Evil would be ending with its fourth season on Paramount+, a blow that was only somewhat softened by the confirmation that four more episodes would be added to the end, operating as a mini-Season 5 of sorts.
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