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Highlights from the "FlashForward" press room:
Marc Guggenheim on how he got involved with the show: "They sent me the script, they were looking to hire a showrunner, [and asked] are you interested in meeting on it? I read the script, I'm like, 'Am I interested in meeting on it? I'll work on it if they'll hire me.' Basically I had a meeting with David [Goyer] and Brannon [Braga] on the set, on the last day of shooting, and I basically said to them, 'Look I don't know how to play this coyly, I'll just show my cards here - I just love the script, it's the best script I've read all year, and if you guys want me I'm there.' [And] I had a follow-up meeting with David where we just sort of talked in general terms about the show and I think it was pretty apparent from that meeting that he and I see the same show and see eye to eye on a great many things... I actually pitched him, I had a small idea for the title card... but he's like, 'I pitched that exact same idea to the network and they loved it.' I think that was just sort of an indication that he and I were both sort of reading from each other's minds very early on in the process.
Marc Guggenheim on the show's weekly structure: "There are serialized elements but every episode has at least one self-contained storyline so it's very similar to 'Eli Stone' in that respect. Like in 'Eli' we had serialized character stories but the cases always had a verdict in the end. Here the procedural elements of the stories are all closed-ended with a couple of exceptions where we'll have like a cliffhanger as like a two-parter and the serialized portions are all the character moments."
Marc Guggenheim on the themes of the show: "The show has a lot of themes. One of the themes is what is the nature of destiny. Is there such a thing as destiny? If so, are you a prisoner of destiny or can you fight destiny? And in the show, the characters will want to fight their fate, others will try to make it happen, others will try to live in denial about it. You look at a lot of the Greek tragedies, like look at Oedipus, which is sort of the first great story about destiny and the human condition. In that story, the attempt to prevent destiny actually brings it about. So there's self-fulfilling prophecies. The other theme of the show is how good and evil is a relative thing. And how actions you think you would never take for any number of reasons you can end up taking and they seem justified in the moment even though when you look back on it you go, 'I would have never done that.'"
Marc Guggenheim on if we'll go back, in addition to forward, in time: "We like to call it playing around with time. And in every, not every episode, but in a lot of episodes in the first 10 in some cases we're in a flash forward, like just show you a piece of the episode at the beginning. Episode nine will flashback to a period before the pilot. So yes, the nature of the show because it's 'FlashForward,' we've encouraged ourselves to play with non-linear structure."
Christine Woods on her character's "flash forward": "At this point she just doesn't know [what to do about it]. Something really intense happens in her flash, something life changing. And at this point it's something she doesn't know whether she's happy or sad about it. So it's definitely one of those things where every time she thinks about it, it's always like well am I going to be upset about that, am I going to look forward to that? No, I'm not looking forward to that. It's kind of making her crazy."
Marc Guggenheim on the show's two masters: "We always say we're really trying to write the show for two audience members. We're trying to write it for the people who watch 'Lost' and the people who watch 'Grey's Anatomy.' And we recognize the people who watch 'Grey's Anatomy' may not necessarily care about the mythology when the people who watch 'Lost' do. And the challenge for us really is just to make sure that both audience types are satisfied at the end of any given episode."
Courtney B. Vance on his take as to who's behind the "flash forward" incident: "No one's safe. The person I think you least think will be the one is going to be the one. It could end up being that little girl, you know? [Laughs.] She could be the one that's the mastermind behind the whole thing. So I don't know, I literally don't know."
Dominic Monaghan on his character: "I can't tell you too much. I play a guy called Simon and as I'm sure you saw from that tiny little teaser: he's a snappy dresser, he's a cocky guy, he's not scared of anything or anyone and he's very smart."
Dominic Monaghan on if he'll return to "Lost" before it's over: "That's like asking Huckleberry Finn is going to appear in the next Mark Twain book. I'm a fictional character. I have no control over that kind of element. It was a great show and something I really liked doing. I think they closed the door well on my character and I would only come back based on the door opening in a way that compliments my character."
David S. Goyer on the hoopla surrounding Dominic joining/not joining the cast: "Dom was cast before we shot the pilot. He's been cast for a long time. We were having some real fun with that."
John Cho on his character's experience, or lack thereof, in the pilot: "My character doesn't have a vision and that really throws him for a loop. I'm not sure what I can tell you beyond what we saw, but I can tell you that he has a fiance and that conflict plays very large in the upcoming episodes."
Joseph Fiennes on whether he'd choose to see his future six months from now: "I would say actually no because I think it's cowardly to go ahead. Because you get all of the chances to perfect it or to avoid it and I think to, maybe, improvise what's thrown at you might... I don't know, it's like a little bit of ducking and weaving. I don't know, I think no."
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