Michael Emerson

On EVIL, acting styles, and other abstracts

By Alex A. Kecskes

Best known for his iconic character 'Ben Linus' on ABC's LOST, Michael Emerson’s nuanced portrayal of the enigmatic villain has gained him critical acclaim and made him a LOST fan-favorite. A Golden Globe Nominee for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Emerson proved that playing the bad guy pays off. Named by Variety as One of the greatest villains in television history, Emerson held LOST's inexplicable answers close for his five-season tenure on the hit series.

Emerson won his first Emmy for Best Guest Performance in a Dramatic Series playing serial killer William Hinks on ABC's The Practice. He also starred alongside James Caviezel in the hit CBS crime drama Person of Interest. Most recently, Emerson appeared in the TV series Mozart in the Jungle, Arrow, and Claws

Regarded by many as TV's most frightening character, Emerson was recently nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his breakout role as Leland Townsend in Paramount+'s EVIL A two-time Emmy Award winner, Emerson is terrifying millions as the star of the supernatural hit EVIL. Entertainment Weekly calls EVIL "a revelation," and Vanity Fair declared it "riveting television." Currently filming season 4, the dark psychological mystery examines the origins of evil and the dividing line between science and religion.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview. Evil wrestles with questions of faith, spirituality, morality, and the occult. What, in particular, attracted you to the role of Leland in Evil?

Michael Emerson: It was the general outline of the story that I was most interested in. I saw that Leland, who didn’t have much to do at the time, had the potential to grow into an interesting adversary—a real villain in the show. I was drawn to that. That and the pedigree of the show. I'm always interested in what Robert and Michell King are doing. So I thought, why don't I sign up for this repertory theater company and see what kind of experience it is? And it's been a good one.

How did you prepare for the role of a sociopathic psychologist?

Emerson: There’s not a lot of preparation to it. I do kind of what I’ve always done, which is sound out the dialog in my head. I repeat it and it’s like music, I suppose. I repeat it until it sounds like it has the right melody for the character. And when I reach a point where I’m happy with its ambiguity, mystery, and humor, I'm good to go.

Leland occupies that arresting space of nerdy menace that worked so well for you in Lost.

Emerson: Yeah, but he’s less earnest than Linus and less tortured. He seems perfectly happy with his work and his place in the scheme of things. Which is kind of funny sometimes.

Do you think Evil makes a statement about the many problems facing our society? About our cocooned, digitized lives and how we may be unprepared for some imminent evil to overtake us?

Emerson: I don’t think the show has a particular agenda. They're just saying here's a particular way of looking at a lot of things that disturb us or interest us. Let's just take a what-if proposition and run with it. What if there were some supernatural agency at work in world events or the things we read in the paper? Would that be an interesting conversation? What if it was predicated on a landscape of good vs. evil?

Since its move to Paramount, Evil’s themes have been getting darker. Will this continue?

Emerson: It’s the license we get from being with a streamer. But I think we’ve already arrived at that. I don’t think there’s any reason to push that envelope any further. We can already show as much blood as we want. As far as profanity and sexuality, I don’t see us going a lot further in those directions. In season four, the writers are comfortable and confident. I’ve only seen the first three scripts and I think they’ve hit their stride.

Will the series delve into Leland's background and go into his head a bit more in Season 4?

Emerson: I don’t expect they need to tell the audience a whole lot more about him. It may serve the character if he remains a bit of a cipher, a bit more mysterious. But at some point, if they have a great idea for making an entertaining reveal of some of his real life, I won’t hesitate to do it. But let’s not show too much of an everyday guy in Leland. Leave them wanting more is my motto.

Evil sprinkles a bit of humor into many episodes. Do you think it provides just enough relief to offset the show's macabre underpinnings?

Emerson: I think so. It gives the audience a license to not go to sleep and have nightmares. It’s a reminder for the characters and some writers that the show is entertainment. It’s a nice balance.

Are there Leland scenes you really like that make you think, God, I really love this show?

Emerson: Sure. Some scenes are so breathlessly dangerous with the stakes so high—in terms of injury or life and death—that it’s thrilling to be in it. For me, it’s musical. It’s like trying something and getting it just dead right, with all the tones and timings singing perfectly. I had a faceoff with Andrea Martin who plays a nun—me with a bottle of raw ammonia and she with a butcher knife. That was kind of thrilling. You could’ve heard a pin drop on the set.

Was there a show or actor that first drew you into acting?

Emerson: As a boy, I liked comic actors like Don Knotts, Red Skelton, and Jackie Gleason. I also liked the actors I couldn't figure out—like Peter Lorre, and Vincent Price. Guys you worried about, guys you weren't sure about. I like not knowing everything they were. That they had secrets or things you couldn't know. I've held on to that as an aesthetic principle.

When you brought up Peter Lorre, it brought to mind The Beast with Five Fingers.

Emerson: (Laughs) He was a wonderful actor.

What have you learned about acting and show business that truly surprised you?

Emerson: Well, I've learned there are more ways to go at it than I ever dreamt. And I've learned that the kind of naturalistic acting that you’re taught or that you learn when you’re young, the kind of ‘methody, delve or reach inside yourself’ style, and the sense memories from your family; I’ve learned that those are not much use to me. I like to approach it more abstractly. I'll refer back to my music analogy. I think of a script as notes on paper and I'm the player. And I'm going to wring the music out of it in a particular way.

What were you like in high school? The guy most likely to….

Emerson: I was a success in high school. I was student body president. But I was the smallest boy in school in my grade, even at graduation. I was the kid most likely to get beat up (laughs). I had a mouth on me. My mother was always reminding me of that, saying, “You need to be quiet because you have a punchable face.”

Did you do drama in school?

Emerson: Yes. And that was my ticket out of the world of competitive maleness. And into a world where I was likely to succeed like anyone else.