'Lost' actor praises character development

The actor behind Mr Eko in hit TV show Lost has praised television as a medium for actors to build characters.

Speaking at a Sky One press screening for the new series, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje explained to Digital Spy how working on Lost compared with his movie work in films such as The Bourne Identity and Get Rich Or Die Tryin': "What you get as an actor with TV is you get the time to flush out an arc. With a movie you've got an hour and a half with maybe ten characters and you'd be lucky if you get to resonate with an audience.

"With a TV series such as Lost you're on there every week and you can really peel the leaves of the onion off. You can drop this layer, you can drop a look. Then you can be bad, then you can be good. You can tease them all the way and really orchestrate and build it up... you can really get an audience hooked - bit, by bit, by bit."

Akinnuoye-Agbaje was referring to the ambiguity of Mr Eko, who has been shown displaying acts of great kindness in his present incarnation as a priest, whilst flashbacks have depicted his acts of cruelty as a drugs smuggling warlord in Nigeria.

Reaching a widespread and diverse audience also pleases the British-born actor, who previously starred in the prison-based television series Oz. "The visibility is high," he noted. "Everybody's going to see your work for a start."

However, working on an island for nine months of the year does take its toll, as Akinnuoye-Agbaje admitted it is "very physical and quite tiring".