Vanity Fair published an excerpt of Maureen Ryan’s forthcoming book BURN IT DOWN: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood. In this chapter, Ryan interviews writers and actors alike on the hit ABC series Lost, where they discuss a culture of toxicity, racism, and harsh reprisals against those who would speak against the creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cruse.
Ryan discusses how the culture for the actors was impacted not just by pay disparities but also seeming reprisals for speaking up for their roles, as Harold Perrineau, one of the few Black actors in the show, alleges when he says he was dismissed after pushing against what he saw as a stereotypical direction for his character’s portrayal.
Likewise in the writers room, according to several writers interviewed by Ryan, toxicity and racism was often rampant and blatant in the writers room. Melinda Hsu Taylor, a writer, producer, and showrunner of shows such as Tom Swift and Nancy Drew, wrote for Lost for the last two season’s of the shows run.
Taylor relayed to Ryan a story of how an episode she co-wrote with script coordinator Greggory Nations the episode “Ab Aeterno”, which was beloved critically and by fans alike, became a source of contention due to its popularity despite lacking Cuse or Lindelof’s names in the writing credits. Despite their credited work, she overheard Cuse claim the credit as her own on a phone call.
Ryan spoke to both Cuse and Lindelof to get their reactions to these allegations, and while neither claimed to recall many of the incidents at hand, Lindelof claimed to “…have significantly evolved and grown…”, suggesting “…it shouldn’t have had to come at the cost and the trauma of people that I hurt on Lost.”
