She may be an “Other” on America’s favorite island, but fans still love her. Get to know actress Elizabeth Mitchell as she talks about her career, motherhood, and guilty pleasures.
Actress Elizabeth Mitchell is best known as the enigmatic Juliet Burke on ABC’s drama/thriller LOST, but it is what she’s found that’s generating excitement this afternoon.
We just found a lost puppy,” says Mitchell, apologizing for the slight delay in starting the interview. No problem: In my book, rescuing a cuddly pup trumps shop talk any day. She deftly fields questions about career and family, all while following the dog as it explores its new, if temporary, digs. “I love puppies, but they really are like babies,” Mitchell adds. Her 3-year-old son, CJ, isn’t so sure about the new arrival, but Mitchell calmly soothes his worries. Seems she’s got the mom role down, too.
Mitchell, her husband, Christopher Soldevilla, who is a teacher and improvisational actor, and their son are in Hawaii, the family’s part-time home while she films season five of the Emmy Award-winning show. She joined the tight-knit cast in season three when fans were introduced to her as one of the island’s “Others,” making her a potential threat to hunky hero Jack (played by Matthew Fox) and his fellow marooned flight mates.
Followers of the show know that Mitchell’s character is complex, at once cold and cunning and empathetic and vulnerable. “[Juliet] is one of my favorite characters,” Mitchell says, “because she does have this tremendous amount of empathy, which I identify with, but she’s also kind of—I always like to say she’s fairly lethal. I love her mystery.”
In real life, there was never any mystery about Mitchell’s career calling. Growing up in Dallas, she always had a passion for acting, performing with the Dallas Theater Center and landing her first big role at age 7 as Alice in Through the Looking Glass (coincidentally, also the title of Lost’s season three finale).
A Texas upbringing and encouragement from her parents infused in Mitchell a confidence and trueness that’s led to her success on stage and screen. “In Texas, you’re kind of brought up to be strong and be your own person,” she says. “My parents absolutely echoed that. They were big on you being an individual and making your way in the world. They also very much had the Texas mentality of ‘there’s nothing you can’t do.’ I enjoyed growing up with that idea.”
On stage, the self-described “hugely awkward” adolescent (hard to believe looking at the 5-foot-10-inch blonde beauty now) became a swan. “I had terrible acne, but on stage you couldn’t see any of that. I could be the most awkward person you’ve ever seen or I could be a lovely person. With makeup on stage, I could be anyone.”
Lost
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