Post by Forever Xena on Aug 15, 2005 22:42:51 GMT -6
SECRETS OF 'LOST' STAR MATTHEW FOX
Exclusive By Clare Raymond
HE'S the sexy neurosurgeon who sends every woman's heart racing as he tends the sick, rescues the drowning and comforts the desperate in hit new TV series Lost.
Serious, sincere and sensible, dashing doctor Jack Shepherd is the dependable castaway the other marooned passengers rely on, in the C4 show that attracted 6.1 million viewers on Wednesday night.
But off-screen, hunky actor Matthew Fox (above, right, with co-star Evangeline Lilly) has a wilder side he's only too eager to share.
Foxy, as he's known to his colleagues, likes nothing better than to strip naked and gallop across the sand, showing off his well-toned, bronzed body.
Co-star Evangeline Lilly, who plays mysterious brunette Kate Austin, says: "He is notorious for taking his clothes off and running around naked, usually around bodies of water. He'll skinny-dip at any moment with anyone."
It's a scene his army of female fans would love to be recreated in the show.
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And just as George Clooney won millions of hearts saving lives as ER's Dr Ross, Fox looks set for equal success in his heroic new role.
But while Clooney still lives the carefree life of a single man, 39-year-old Fox is happily married with a family.
And he has the love of one woman to thank for his astonishing success - his Italian-born wife, Margherita Ronchi, who supported him as he waited for his big break.
He was an economic student with designs on Wall Street and working nights loading flowers in New York's wholesale district when he met the beautiful brunette in 1987.
"She was 19 years old and she didn't speak very good English," he says. After he graduated he set his heart on becoming an actor and Margherita made his dream possible.
"She managed a coffee shop and held down several different restaurant-type jobs," he says. "She's always been incredibly supportive and sometimes even a little bit jealous that I found that thing that I was so dedicated to and had a thing I wanted to grow at, learn about and succeed in."
They married five years after they met and have a daughter Kyle, eight, and son, Byron, three, to whom he is devoted. When he landed the starring role in Lost, the whole family moved to Hawaii, where the show is filmed.
Fox was worried about uprooting his children from their comfortable home in Manhattan Beach, California, but says: "When the show was picked up for 13 episodes and we knew we were moving there, my daughter Kyle started crying. She said they were tears of happiness."
Now the family stay in an ocean-front villa with a pool and are enjoying a slower pace of life. Fox loves to swim with the children.
"We're spoiling ourselves," he says. "One of my favourite things is to take a nap with Byron. He sucks his thumb, hooks his finger over his nose and just looks at you, glassy-eyed. It's so quiet and intimate. Those moments are priceless."
He also opens his home every weekend for barbecues with the crew. And each Wednesday night the cast take it in turns to hold Lost parties at their homes, as they watch that week's brain-twisting episode.
"His house has become a mecca for all the other actors," says Damon Lindelof, one of Lost's creators. "He opens the door for everyone to come over on Sundays."
And while Fox looked forward to filming scenes on the sun-drenched beaches of Hawaii, it didn't always live up to his expectations.
"The first day, we shot the jungle scene where Jack, Kate and Charlie are running from the Big It," he says.
"We were freezing and they were dousing us with fire hoses to thicken the rain. The three of us were up to our shins in mud, shivering. I remember thinking: 'This is the furthest thing from what I assumed shooting in Hawaii would be like.'"
And it's a million miles away from the shy boy who grew up on a farm and dreamed of a job on Wall Street.
Matthew was born in the rugged cowboy countryside of Crowheart, Wyoming, where his parents raised longhorn cattle and grew barley for Coors beer on a 120-acre farm.
"So much of who I am and how I approach the world has to do with my father," he says. "He is an amazing man and I've admired his choices since I was very young."
His dad, Francis, came from what the actor calls "a Philadelphia blue-blood, old-money family. Early in his life his sense of independence made him move away from the life of privilege he was born to, and he raised a family in rural solitude.
The middle of three boys, at his father's suggestion Fox left home to study on the east coast - a move that changed his life.
"It opened my mind and my concept of the world," he says. "Wyoming is very provincial and has a way of keeping people there."
He entered the Deerfield Academy, in Massachusetts, and then transferred to Columbia University, where he studied economics.
While still a student he began modelling, persuaded by a girlfriend's mother, who was an agent.
"I was seduced by the money of modelling," he admits. "I was looking for a way to support myself in college."
But his intentions of working on Wall Street changed when he was cast in commercials. This opened the door to acting and in 1992 he appeared in US TV series Freshman Dorm. He then won a supporting role in the film My Boyfriend's Back.
But his breakthrough role was in US drama series Party Of Five, which was shown on C4. He played Charlie, the sensitive older brother of a family of orphans.
He landed the part in 1994, and within two years was famous enough to feature in the long-running US Got Milk? ad campaign, joining stars such as Naomi Campbell, Pete Sampras and Jennifer Aniston.
He also starred with Donald Sutherland in Behind The Mask in 1999, but when Party Of Five ended the following year he took two years off.
"I wanted people to forget about me in that show," he says, "and come back doing something different."
He spent quality time with his wife and children and joined a Los Angeles repertory company.
"I needed to find more of a balance with my work and being a father and husband," he says.
During the 90s he was almost reclusive. Party Of Five had gained a cult following but Fox rarely went to parties or photo sessions for fans.
"I fought fame for a long time," he says. "People think you are just like that character and make judgments about you. I was very distrustful of people. But I've grown up a bit."
He returned to US TV in 2002, starring as a private eye who contacted the dead in the short-lived show Haunted.
"I was slightly relieved when it didn't do well," he says. "I was going sometimes four or five days without seeing my kids."
So when Haunted was canned he took a few months off. Then last February, he received the script for the Lost pilot, and says he felt "Like a kid opening up a toy box."
Co-creator JJ Abrams had initially considered Fox for the role of troublemaker Sawyer, but after meeting the actor decided to give him the lead instead.
"With his look, confidence and kindness, he felt like the guy who could take you through this mysterious adventure," he says.
Fox, who was named by America's People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world in 1996, keeps in shape by running, surfing and cycling. But with a family and so many hobbies he has little time for the LA party scene.
"Not to say I don't party, but we live in Manhattan Beach and we're sort of removed from the real - I guess it's a cliche - Hollywood scene," he says. "I've almost made an effort to booze and smoke just to give myself more character.
"I am in a really great place now. I've been doing this for 15 years, and I feel like I'm better at it then I've ever been."
Exclusive By Clare Raymond
HE'S the sexy neurosurgeon who sends every woman's heart racing as he tends the sick, rescues the drowning and comforts the desperate in hit new TV series Lost.
Serious, sincere and sensible, dashing doctor Jack Shepherd is the dependable castaway the other marooned passengers rely on, in the C4 show that attracted 6.1 million viewers on Wednesday night.
But off-screen, hunky actor Matthew Fox (above, right, with co-star Evangeline Lilly) has a wilder side he's only too eager to share.
Foxy, as he's known to his colleagues, likes nothing better than to strip naked and gallop across the sand, showing off his well-toned, bronzed body.
Co-star Evangeline Lilly, who plays mysterious brunette Kate Austin, says: "He is notorious for taking his clothes off and running around naked, usually around bodies of water. He'll skinny-dip at any moment with anyone."
It's a scene his army of female fans would love to be recreated in the show.
Advertisement
And just as George Clooney won millions of hearts saving lives as ER's Dr Ross, Fox looks set for equal success in his heroic new role.
But while Clooney still lives the carefree life of a single man, 39-year-old Fox is happily married with a family.
And he has the love of one woman to thank for his astonishing success - his Italian-born wife, Margherita Ronchi, who supported him as he waited for his big break.
He was an economic student with designs on Wall Street and working nights loading flowers in New York's wholesale district when he met the beautiful brunette in 1987.
"She was 19 years old and she didn't speak very good English," he says. After he graduated he set his heart on becoming an actor and Margherita made his dream possible.
"She managed a coffee shop and held down several different restaurant-type jobs," he says. "She's always been incredibly supportive and sometimes even a little bit jealous that I found that thing that I was so dedicated to and had a thing I wanted to grow at, learn about and succeed in."
They married five years after they met and have a daughter Kyle, eight, and son, Byron, three, to whom he is devoted. When he landed the starring role in Lost, the whole family moved to Hawaii, where the show is filmed.
Fox was worried about uprooting his children from their comfortable home in Manhattan Beach, California, but says: "When the show was picked up for 13 episodes and we knew we were moving there, my daughter Kyle started crying. She said they were tears of happiness."
Now the family stay in an ocean-front villa with a pool and are enjoying a slower pace of life. Fox loves to swim with the children.
"We're spoiling ourselves," he says. "One of my favourite things is to take a nap with Byron. He sucks his thumb, hooks his finger over his nose and just looks at you, glassy-eyed. It's so quiet and intimate. Those moments are priceless."
He also opens his home every weekend for barbecues with the crew. And each Wednesday night the cast take it in turns to hold Lost parties at their homes, as they watch that week's brain-twisting episode.
"His house has become a mecca for all the other actors," says Damon Lindelof, one of Lost's creators. "He opens the door for everyone to come over on Sundays."
And while Fox looked forward to filming scenes on the sun-drenched beaches of Hawaii, it didn't always live up to his expectations.
"The first day, we shot the jungle scene where Jack, Kate and Charlie are running from the Big It," he says.
"We were freezing and they were dousing us with fire hoses to thicken the rain. The three of us were up to our shins in mud, shivering. I remember thinking: 'This is the furthest thing from what I assumed shooting in Hawaii would be like.'"
And it's a million miles away from the shy boy who grew up on a farm and dreamed of a job on Wall Street.
Matthew was born in the rugged cowboy countryside of Crowheart, Wyoming, where his parents raised longhorn cattle and grew barley for Coors beer on a 120-acre farm.
"So much of who I am and how I approach the world has to do with my father," he says. "He is an amazing man and I've admired his choices since I was very young."
His dad, Francis, came from what the actor calls "a Philadelphia blue-blood, old-money family. Early in his life his sense of independence made him move away from the life of privilege he was born to, and he raised a family in rural solitude.
The middle of three boys, at his father's suggestion Fox left home to study on the east coast - a move that changed his life.
"It opened my mind and my concept of the world," he says. "Wyoming is very provincial and has a way of keeping people there."
He entered the Deerfield Academy, in Massachusetts, and then transferred to Columbia University, where he studied economics.
While still a student he began modelling, persuaded by a girlfriend's mother, who was an agent.
"I was seduced by the money of modelling," he admits. "I was looking for a way to support myself in college."
But his intentions of working on Wall Street changed when he was cast in commercials. This opened the door to acting and in 1992 he appeared in US TV series Freshman Dorm. He then won a supporting role in the film My Boyfriend's Back.
But his breakthrough role was in US drama series Party Of Five, which was shown on C4. He played Charlie, the sensitive older brother of a family of orphans.
He landed the part in 1994, and within two years was famous enough to feature in the long-running US Got Milk? ad campaign, joining stars such as Naomi Campbell, Pete Sampras and Jennifer Aniston.
He also starred with Donald Sutherland in Behind The Mask in 1999, but when Party Of Five ended the following year he took two years off.
"I wanted people to forget about me in that show," he says, "and come back doing something different."
He spent quality time with his wife and children and joined a Los Angeles repertory company.
"I needed to find more of a balance with my work and being a father and husband," he says.
During the 90s he was almost reclusive. Party Of Five had gained a cult following but Fox rarely went to parties or photo sessions for fans.
"I fought fame for a long time," he says. "People think you are just like that character and make judgments about you. I was very distrustful of people. But I've grown up a bit."
He returned to US TV in 2002, starring as a private eye who contacted the dead in the short-lived show Haunted.
"I was slightly relieved when it didn't do well," he says. "I was going sometimes four or five days without seeing my kids."
So when Haunted was canned he took a few months off. Then last February, he received the script for the Lost pilot, and says he felt "Like a kid opening up a toy box."
Co-creator JJ Abrams had initially considered Fox for the role of troublemaker Sawyer, but after meeting the actor decided to give him the lead instead.
"With his look, confidence and kindness, he felt like the guy who could take you through this mysterious adventure," he says.
Fox, who was named by America's People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world in 1996, keeps in shape by running, surfing and cycling. But with a family and so many hobbies he has little time for the LA party scene.
"Not to say I don't party, but we live in Manhattan Beach and we're sort of removed from the real - I guess it's a cliche - Hollywood scene," he says. "I've almost made an effort to booze and smoke just to give myself more character.
"I am in a really great place now. I've been doing this for 15 years, and I feel like I'm better at it then I've ever been."
source Daily Mirror