CraveOnline: I noticed when he’s defibrillating, he says “charge” and “shoot.” Of course here in the States it’s “clear,” as we see on all the medical shows. Is that a true linguistic difference in British surgery?
Naveen Andrews: Yes, just in terms of the language, I lived in America for 15 years and apart from spelling, what we describe as Americanisms to you are the way you look at the way we speak the language. Here is an obvious example. Yes, it’s very different.
Were you in London from 1995 to 1997?
I was, yes. That’s where I was living but on the day the accident happened I was actually in Toronto.
What was your awareness of Diana during that time, maybe her humanitarian missions? You said you weren’t aware of Hasnat.
I had no interest in the royal family whatsoever, and still don’t. I have absolutely no interest in the tabloids or reporting of the royal family. Obviously she was ubiquitous in terms of a public figure that one was aware of but I had no interest whatsoever. It’s strange. I can only perceive the royal family as an entity historically. I think I know more about the royal family from the Plantagenets in the 14th Century than the modern family.
For me the film was most illuminating about Diana’s humanitarian work, since that wasn’t what they were reporting in the ‘90s.
No, and I wasn’t aware of that either. Again, the script and doing this movie allowed me to appreciate her really as a person, as an ordinary human being who privately wanted to be loved and cherished, like all of us do, and also wanted to contribute something to the world, to actually make a difference. Her work, for instance, with the land mines, what she managed to achieve is more than admirable, but again I wasn’t aware of that. If I hadn’t done this movie, I wouldn’t have been.
Cas Anvar played Sayid’s brother on “Lost,” didn’t he?
Yes.
I guess you didn’t work with him on this movie, since he played Dodi Fayed.
No, we never had a scene together.
You had the role of a lifetime on “Lost.” With Jafar on “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland,” there are very few characters who are definitively villains. Is that fun too?
Yes, obviously the general tenor of the piece is visual impact, those costumes and there are some elements of camp in it that are really enjoyable. It’s good to do things that are completely different. I can’t think of anything more different from Diana, could you?
You may have heard that Damon Lindelof left Twitter, and he wrote a very nice piece about his sensitivity to reactions to “Lost.” Were you aware at the time that he was so sensitive to the reaction to his work?
Of course, because it’s his work. He’s a writer. I always thought of Damon as being extremely sensitive in a good way. It’s his baby. Of course he’s sensitive.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
