‘People named their kids after us!’ Lost’s Penny and Desmond on being one of TV’s best ever romances

Lost is one of television’s most romantic dramas. Forget smoke monsters, time travel and that infamous ending – this was a show fuelled by swoony stories. Sun and Jin; Rose and Bernard; Sawyer/Jack/Kate/Juliet; Charlie and Claire; Sayid and Nadia (not Shannon). Love was the reason behind so many of the islanders’ need to survive, or to sacrifice themselves.

But it was Penny’s and Desmond’s relationship that defined the series.

Penelope Widmore (Sonya Walger), a billionaire’s daughter, met Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), an ordinary Scot, when she went to pick up wine from a monastery, where Des had just quit being a monk. It was love at first sight and they drove off together with the booze. But the relationship was doomed due to Penny’s disapproving (and evil) father, Des’s need to prove himself in a sailing competition and his arrival at a freaky island. Like the Odyssey character after whom she was named, Penny spent a lot of time waiting and wondering. However, as she once forewarned: “With enough money and determination, you can find anyone.” And she did. In fact, without Penny, the survivors of Oceanic flight 815 might never have made it home.

Of course, it wasn’t easy. There was a breakup, Charlie’s devastating death and the sob-fest episode The Constant – widely considered the best TV episode of all time – in which, after eight years apart, Penny kept her promise to answer Des’s phone call on Christmas Eve. As Penny put it: “All you really need to survive is someone who loves you. And you have her.”

How did Walger and Cusick make such a love story for the ages? On the day I put this to them, it is exactly 21 years since the Lost pilot. “It’s the day the plane went down … and I’m flying to LA in two hours!” says Cusick from his home in Hawaii, the filming location of Lost, where he moved his family 20 years ago. “Are you really?” gasps Walger from Santa Monica, California. “It will make the news,” he laughs.

The friends quickly exchange life updates: Cusick is filming an indie vampire western; Walger is navigating a new normal after losing her family home in the Los Angeles fires. Then, it’s time to talk about becoming Penny and Desmond …

Do you remember meeting for the first time?

HC: The writers had an idea for something, but they didn’t know what. When I shot the photo [of Penny and Des, which Des keeps with him on the island], another actor played that – and she was a local extra. Then we did it again with Sonya.

SW: Let’s be clear: there was no time for a chemistry read. There was no time for anything, ever. I mean, they were writing these scripts and shooting them 15 minutes later. People were being cast and put on a plane that afternoon.

HC: It was night-time! [Their first scene together is at night in a stadium.]

SW: I’d been there on my own, jumping up and down around the stadium and feeling quite adrift – I didn’t know anyone. I was really sticky and thought: I need to meet this guy I don’t know anything about. We immediately discovered that Ian is half Scottish and half Peruvian and I’m half English and half Argentine. And those are strangely exotic and yet neighboured identities. That was something very lovely, very rare.

HC: I have a big memory of meeting Sonya and thinking: oh, a proper, proper actress. But then she would pop in and out all the time.

SW: I’d be gone for months. Funnily enough, Ian was my constant. I didn’t know anyone else in the show and I really wasn’t getting the intervening scripts. So we’d sit down and I’d be like: “All right, what’s happened?”

What do Penny and Des love about each other?

SW: When you’ve got a father as domineering as Charles Widmore [Alan Dale], the quiet, gentle devotion of Desmond is the antithesis of that.

HC: The love was true and pure – and it was a good love. But it was more about: how will they get back together?

What were your favourite romantic moments?

HC: In the scene with the letter [from Penny, which Desmond finds for the first time on the island], I wasn’t a regular character at that point and I think that helped. There was another scene, where they were shouting out all these crazy directions: “Do it sad! Do it angry!” I was trying to show them my whole colour palette. And then Terry Quinn [who played Locke] said to me: “That was your audition.”

The irony of The Constant is that we weren’t even together. I ended up doing it with the assistant director on my side. When Sonya turned up, she did it and I was on the sofa behind. That moment, that phone call – with not a lot of dialogue – was one of those things that worked a bit of magic. What was really hard was when we had to meet [in season four, when Penny finds Des] and I was thinking: how are we going to beat that?

Is there anything you wish Penny and Des had done differently?

SW: The greedy actor in me would say I’d love to have done more with us.

HC: Me too! I think there was more life in us.

SW: Spin-off, for fuck’s sake – where was the spin-off?

HC: Now I would push that. You, me and Charlie on a boat.

SW: I say that partly jokingly. Because what gives this couple its place in the world’s heart is that it wasn’t oversaturated. You only had a handful of episodes to hold. You didn’t get bored of us, that’s for sure.

HC: It left people wanting more.

SW: We did great and left them on a high note.

When did you realise this was a love story for the ages?

SW: In this show that had so many contradictions and loose ends and tears in the space time continuum that bent your mind, here was one really classic trope you could hold on to.

HC: It was a simple story of two people who couldn’t be together – because of her father, or time, or so many things in their way – who desperately wanted to be together.

SW: I felt very honoured when I got the call asking me to fly in for the finale – if nothing else, it was acknowledgment from the creators of the value of our little duo. But it’s only as the years have crept on, appearing on “the best couple of all time” lists and things. It never ceases to surprise and truly gratify me that we did some work that has endured like this. It’s amazing.

HC: I always thought we had a cool storyline. But we didn’t know the legacy it would have. It’s been 20 years and there’s been so much great TV since – and we’re still talking about that relationship.

How romantic are you in real life?

SW: Romantic is a weird word in your 50s! I’m devoted. I know what devotion is – to my family, to my husband, to the life we have. And it’s something I felt at the time even without them. I felt a strong sense of devotion to the life I had created for myself in LA, so much so that I wasn’t willing to let it go by moving to Hawaii. [Walger was in the running to play the main character Kate Austen, but pulled out.]

HC: I think as I’m getting older I’m getting more romantic and softer. I get more emotional about the past, like thinking about my kids as babies.

SW: I’m going to push back and say he’s always had that.

HC: Really? I’ve never thought of myself like that. I’m a “tough” guy!

SW: No he’s not! He’s a deeply, deeply feeling man.

What has been the most intense fan reaction to Penny and Des?

SW: A full leg tattoo of our faces! I get “Not Penny’s boat” held up to me at airports a lot. It’s like a fan’s secret way of saying: “I see you, but I will respect you.” I really mean it when I say it’s just really humbling to have done anything at all that leaves such a mark.

HC: People have named their children after us – that’s odd.

SW: Yes! I have 100% had some Pennys.

What was your relationship like off camera?

SW: It just felt so easy and effortless from day one. It was a pleasure to see Ian. I think he was grateful just to have someone visiting from the mainland who was also from England; there was some sort of familiarity.

HC: When I arrived [on the Lost set], the cast was already very integrated. I worked separately, which I really enjoyed, actually. Even on the days I did work with the whole cast, I didn’t really enjoy them, because there are so many actors and you have to wait for your turn. I liked working with two or three people – I love it. It was very easy with Sonya and it was always going to be a good scene when we met up.

SW: Years later, I came to Hawaii with my family and we met up with Ian. For old time sakes, we went to the church where we unloaded boxes of wine and took photos there. We stay in touch.

HC: We did a short film together, too.

SW: That’s right – I had just had my baby, I think.

HC: No, she was eight months pregnant!

SW: Oh yeah! Ian, if you’ve got a day off when you’re in LA and you want a cup of tea, will you come and find me?

HC: Yes! I’ll try.

Did you keep anything from the set that reminds you of Penny and Des?

SW: I lost everything in the house. I don’t even have my children’s baby photos. It’s really shocking and it makes me very, very intentional about what I put back.

HC: I had the blue shirt – I stole it and they asked for it back. They were pretty stingy. I auctioned it [for charity] anyway. I’ve seen many reproductions of their photo and I’m asked to sign it.

SW: My first novel came out in February this year, three weeks after the fire. I had to go to a book festival the other day and people handed me Lost photos to sign, and I was like: dude, just buy the book!

What can Penny and Des teach us about love?

SW: Keep the faith.

HC: “Keep the faith” is great – I’ll go with that, too.