Actor Henry Ian Cusick has turned to storytelling on the really small screen
Henry Ian Cusick, star of Lost and The 100, branches out into online storytelling
When the TV sensation Lost blew up over a decade ago, one of its stars kind of missed the whole must-see TV hullabaloo that surrounded the one-hour drama.
“Because I lived in Hawaii we were sort of cut off from the rest of the world,” said Henry Ian Cusick, who played Desmond Hume on Lost and is in Vancouver shooting the CW scifi drama series The 100.
“It was my first show in the States, so I just assumed that this is how it was for all of the shows. I didn’t really know I was kind of asleep in many ways.”
Now Cusick, a native of Peru who calls Oahu, Hawaii, home, says he is much more mindful of how he navigates the showbiz world he inhabits as a network TV star.
“This time I am trying to be more present. I am trying to appreciate the moments,” said Cusick who did 74 Lost episodes between 2005-2010 and was nominated for an Emmy Award.
“I look back on Lost and think I missed a lot of what was going on because I was so in it. Now that I am a little bit older and little bit more reflective I can take a step back and look at what it is that I am in.”
Right now Cusick is the middle of playing Marcus Kane in the fifth season of The 100. That gig joins a resume that also includes turns on 24, Scandal and Body of Proof.
While Cusick has been busy telling stories on screen he has also expanded his love of a good tale to the online world by working as a creative consultant for the online storytelling hub JamBios.com. The still fairly young (just over a year old) website hosts a collaborative location for people to tell and share their stories.
“Writing these stories will make you think about people you haven’t thought about in awhile,” said Cusick. “By writing these stories it makes you remember incidents and it forces you to remember people that you hadn’t thought about for awhile. It’s just a very reflective way of getting back in touch.
Cusick is the father of three sons aged 23, 19, 17 and says JamBios is a great place to gather family memories and even reach out to future generations he has not yet met.
“I could be writing stories to my grandchildren,” said Cusick.
He could be finding stories for screenplays, too — the site has an open forum component.
“We want to see how the site progresses and see how people use it.”
Aside from creative input Cusick is also the voice of Monty the site’s mascot that is available to prompt writers if needed by suggesting subjects to write about. Monty offers up hundreds of topics like “first car”, “first kiss,” and “first job”. The writers then can invite friends and family to join in and add their own memories to the narrative. People can only access the stories of others if they are invited to do so.
Cusick came across this online world by chance during a real estate transaction.
“As an actor I was looking to do other things but more in the producing and directing, and then I met (website CEO) Beth Carvin,” said Cusick.
“I had just finished this movie Rememory with Peter Dinklage, and I was telling her it was about a man who has made a machine that captures memories. She was telling me about her new venture, this thing JamBios, which is about sharing memories. In that moment we thought how interesting we are both talking about memories in the same moment.”
Cusick’s wife Annie, a playwright and director, was also there and soon the conversation was off and running.
“We just jumped on it. What a great idea to come in on right at the beginning,” said Cusick. “We knew very little about it, but we knew it was creative.”
It was also something the couple could work on while still enjoying their island life.
“I will do anything to keep on living and working in Hawaii,” said Cusick, who notched his first TV job in 2003 in a Lifetime movie called Perfect Romance that was shot in Victoria. “I am all for more things happening in Hawaii.”
Who isn’t?