Photos: Jorge Garcia’s ‘Lost’ island tour
Jorge Garcia, who played Hurley on “Lost,” enjoyed his time shooting the series in
ON ‘LOST’: The tree outside of the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute, where Hurley was institutionalized
ON OAHU: The Hakipu’u Learning Center at Windward Community College
Hurley’s mental institution played a key role in the character’s back story. This is the spot where the ghost of Charlie [Dominic Monaghan] appeared and where Hurley was seen painting. “They actually just let me paint,” he said. So he threw himself into making intriguing pictures, including what he describes as “an igloo and an Inuit carrying fish in front of it,” because of the scene in the show “where there’s the blip in the Ice Station and they contact Penny Widmore [Sonya Walger]. I thought it would make people think of that. And also I thought about the furthest that Hurley can get away in his mind from the island.”
Another time, the script mentioned a drawing of forest and trees, but the mischievous Garcia instead decided to draw a sphinx: “At the time there was this door behind Ben’s cabin that had all these hieroglyphics on it. So I thought if we tried to bring out discussions of Egyptian symbols and things like that, it might get people excited about whether there was some connection to it. I wanted to get people talking.” (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
ON ‘LOST’: Jin (
ON OAHU: The 900-year-old Byodo-In Temple in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park in Kahalulu.
Hurley has never been seen at this temple, but Jorge Garcia once shot a pickup scene on the grounds, and the temple is one of his favorite places on the island to take visitors. It was pouring rain during our visit but that didn’t stop Garcia from posing for photographs with tourists who recognized him or taking us inside to see the 18-foot Buddha inside. (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
ON ‘LOST’: Garcia points to the pier that served as site for the second season finale showdown
ON OAHU: Located on private property, the Waikane Pier is on the Windward side of the island along Kane’ohe Bay
The day the cast shot the fateful second season finale (which ended with Michael’s betrayal, the revelation that Ben Linus was the leader of the Others, and the kidnapping of Kate [ Evangeline Lilly], Sawyer [Josh Holloway], Jack [Matthew Fox] and Hurley), Garcia recalls everyone sitting on the pier, including M.C. Gainey, who played the menacing Other lieutenant, Tom. It turns out Tom isn’t so menacing in real life: “No one’s a better joke teller than M.C. Gainey. You can tell he’s from New Orleans. His jokes usually featured characters from that region that spoke in that Cajun patois and it was pretty cool.” It was also a significant day for another reason: Garcia thinks it was the first day he shot a scene with Michael Emerson, who plays Ben. (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
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ON ‘LOST’: “Boone Hill,” the final resting place for several characters, named after the first of the leading characters to die.
ON OAHU: Police Beach on the Papailoa coastline
Hurley has delivered several important eulogies at the castaways’ burial ground, and he was seen in Tuesday’s episode kneeling at Libby’s grave. “The first time we were at the grave, it was for Boone, and [actor] Ian Somerhalder actually laid in the grave,” Garcia recalled. “And then for a long time after, the people were either already buried or they were wrapped in a tarp so you couldn’t tell it was a dummy underneath.”
Funeral scenes were fun for the cast because those, Garcia said, “were some of the few scenes that actually everybody was in. So we’d all be hanging out and I remember a lot of times we’d be playing electronic Scrabble on a phone. So in between cuts and setups we’d be passing the phone around and whoever had the phone, would put it in their pocket and we’d be rolling. Then cut, pull the phone out and continue playing.” (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
ON ‘LOST’: Hurley’s golf course
ON OAHU: The privately owned Kualoa Ranch in the Ka’a’awa Valley, where films such as “Godzilla” and “Jurassic Park” were filmed
After discovering golf clubs among the luggage in the plane crash wreckage, Hurley created an impromptu golf course, where he held the “First and Hopefully Last Island Open.” Garcia said, “It was one of the first iconic things that Hurley did. For a long time, that was people’s favorite moment of Hurley’s on the show. It kind of went from the golf course, to beating up Sawyer [Josh Holloway] in the tent, to hitting the guy with the van.” The area is now a designated tourist spot. (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
ON ‘LOST’: The tent where Hurley lived when the survivors camped on the beach
ON OAHU: Police Beach on the Papailoa coastline
It may have looked like paradise, but these shelters were not a pleasant work environment, Garcia said. “You wanted to spend as little time inside the tent as possible and couldn’t wait to get out to do your scene because the cushions from the plane that are inside the tent constantly got rained on and would dry out and really smell musty and moldy. In between when you’re waiting for them to say ‘action,’ you didn’t want to touch anything in there.’ (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
ON ‘LOST’: Dharmaville, home of the Others and where the survivors lived in the ‘70s timeline
ON OAHU: Camp Erdman, a YMCA for children, on the North Shore
One way the cast killed time between takes was discovering “little cheats” the crew used, Garcia said. “At the motor pool in Dharmaville, we discovered these tires -- they look like tires buried in the ground. But they’re really half tires that are resting on top of the ground.”
But more important to Garcia: Dharmaville is where he got to drive the van for a second time. “That last bit where Jack throws Sayid (Naveen Andrews) in and they hop in the van and we take off, I did the first take or maybe it was the rehearsal. After that, they had the stunt driver do it and that wasn’t as awesome. But I got to drive the getaway at least once. And getting to drive that van again, I saw that I’d gotten better at driving that sucker.” (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
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ON ‘LOST’: The beach where Oceanic 815 crashed
ON OAHU: Mokule’ia Beach on the North Shore, near Camp Erdman
Something “Lost” viewers never saw: “The plane crashes inside the jungle and kind of tumbles along the ground and lands on the beach. They never really shot that part,” he said, but damage to the jungle was visible on the set. “It was a nice detail they added to show how the plane got there. We didn’t crash over the ocean onto the beach. We went over the island first and crashed and came out to the beach.”
When they filmed the pilot, the cast stayed in hotels on Waikiki Beach and were bused to the North Shore, about 90 minutes away. Garcia said, “I just remember driving up on the beach and seeing the whole thing there, the crash, and that’s an impression I’m always going to have. I remember when I first saw the plane, I chuckled at it because it made me nervous. It was such an impressive set with all the smoke and everything. I realized, ‘This is big-league television now.’ ” (Jose Angel Castro / For The Times)
