Henry Ian Cusick

Henry Ian Cusick is most famous for his role as Desmond Hume in the American TV series Lost. The 50-year-old has also been in 24, Scandal and The Mentalist, as well as in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The 100 and Inhumans.

Cusick has also made appearances in movies such as The Girl On The Train and Rememory. He speaks to Film News about his new feature film Chimera, which is about a scientist freezing his children alive, as he tries to find a cure their deadly genetic disease.

How did you come to be involved in Chimera? How did it all happen?

I got a script from my manager. He sent me the script, and said it was a first-time director, Maurice Haeems. That’s pretty much all I knew. Like all scripts, I just said, “Give it to me. Let me have a read of it”, and I read it. I have to say it was one of the longest scripts I ever read. It was a very unusual script. It immediately got my attention. I didn’t really know how it was going to be. It was also very compelling.

How is Chimera different from other horror and sci-fi movies?

You know, I haven’t actually seen the movie yet, so I don’t know how it turned out, but I am hearing everyone say that it’s a horror movie. When I was shooting it, I never thought of it as a horror movie. I thought of it as an intelligent sci-fi. To me, it was a sci-fi movie, about a scientist trying to save his children, but within that came up a lot of questions about the use of stem cells, and then they had that really cool twist at the end.

This is Maurice Haeems’s first feature film. How was it like to work with him?

You know, Maurice is very intelligent, and like all intelligent leaders, I think he listens to advice from everyone and then makes his own decision, and I think that is the best way to be a leader, to be a director - to let everyone do what they do to the best of their abilities and then pick and choose what he liked from what everyone was suggesting. He is remarkably intelligent which is his great strength, and what I really loved about him was that when you asked him a question about the script, he could really give you in great detail a very considered answer, which is not something you get from most directors.

What are you working on next?

I am going to head to Atlanta. I am going to shoot a new pilot called The Passage for FOX TV.

Which was your favourite film at the Oscars?

Out of all those films that were up for consideration, I would say that Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was my favourite.


Chimera will premiere at the SCI-FI-LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2018, which will run from the May 1 to May 6, 2018 at the Stratford Picturehouse Cinema in London.