What happened to the Lost cast after the show?

Once upon a time, the Lost cast was the biggest ensemble on television. Across six seasons between 2004 and 2010, the complex tale of plane crash survivors on a desert island was a ratings hit — even as viewers were often frustrated by its opaque storytelling.

The show is now back in the spotlight thanks to its recent arrival on Netflix in both the UK and USA, with new viewers and previous fans rediscovering the tangled mythological web of Lost. Hopefully they'll be less disappointed than a lot of fans were that first time around.

With Lost on everyone's lips again, it's a great time to check in on the Lost cast and see what the most important names from the show have been up to since the controversial series finale aired.

Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox received a lot of acclaim, including nominations at the Golden Globes and the Emmys, for his performance as Jack Shephard in Lost. Jack was one of the series' main characters and became the de facto leader of the survivors' group in the first few seasons.

Read more: Lost is now on Netflix and it’s a harsh reminder of what’s missing from today’s TV shows (Total Film)

Since Lost, he has appeared in films including World War Z and Bone Tomahawk, as well as playing the villain Picasso in 2012 thriller Alex Cross. He took a break from the industry between 2014 and 2021 before returning with the Aussie comedy series C*A*U*G*H*T, which is due to air in the UK soon via ITVX.

Josh Holloway

Josh Holloway's performance as the anti-heroic hunk Sawyer won him a lot of fans during his time on Lost and he was even offered the role of Gambit in the X-Men films. He has said over the years that the tough filming schedule of Lost led him to turn down some big jobs, including in a movie with Brad Pitt.

After Lost concluded, he played an IMF agent in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. He also took on the lead role in cyber-crime series Intelligence, but that was cancelled after just a single season. However, he got chance to appear in America's biggest show with a recurring role as an antagonistic rancher in the third season of Yellowstone.

Evangeline Lilly

As Kate Austen, Evangeline Lilly found herself at the centre of a love triangle in the early seasons of Lost involving Jack and Sawyer. In fact, Lilly herself has been very critical of how her character was written, admitting she would "throw scripts across rooms" in frustration at the character's lack of autonomy.

Read more: JJ Abrams apologises to Evangeline Lilly over semi-naked Lost scene (Sky News)

Lilly has had arguably the biggest career of any of the major Lost alumni. She scored the role of pivotal elf character Tauriel in The Hobbit and then joined the MCU as Hope van Dyne — aka The Wasp — in the Ant-Man movies. In 2024, she announced her retirement from acting in favour of humanitarian work.

Jorge Garcia

Jorge Garcia was the first actor to be cast for Lost, with the character of Hurley created for him to play after producers saw him as a drug dealer in a 2004 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. He had previously appeared in Ted Danson sitcom Becker, but it was as Hurley — one of Lost's few overtly comic characters — that he became famous.

He has since become a reliable supporting player in the comedy world, appearing in films like The Ridiculous Six and The Wedding Ringer. Most recently, he turned up as hunchback Floop in Rob Zombie's reboot of The Munsters.

Yunjin Kim

Yunjin Kim originally auditioned for Lost in the hope of playing Kate but, with Evangeline Lilly lined up for that role, producers wrote the character of Sun-Hwa Kwon — known as Sun — just for her. She and her husband, played by Daniel Dae Kim, both land on the island after the crash and reconcile their turbulent relationship.

Kim has worked mostly in South Korea since Lost, most recently in the 2024 comedy Dog Days. On the small screen, she has recently appeared in XO, Kitty and Station 19.

Daniel Dae Kim

Daniel Dae Kim portrayed Sun's husband Jin-Soo Kwon — who worked for Sun's dad as a mob enforcer — in Lost. He's initially the only survivor who doesn't speak English, but does learn as the series goes on.

Read more: Daniel Dae Kim has died on-screen so many times that 'it became a real issue for my kids' (Yahoo Entertainment)

Kim has appeared in some high-profile Hollywood movies in recent years, including as a key antagonist in the 2019 Hellboy movie and in a voice role in Disney animation Raya and the Last Dragon. He also played Doctor Han in medical show The Good Doctor, which put him at the heart of the infamous "I am a surgeon" internet meme.

Naveen Andrews

Naveen Andrews' character Sayid is a man tormented by his past. He tortured people during his time in the Iraqi military and that weighs heavily on the character throughout the show.

Andrews already had a film career before he appeared on Lost, having shown up in The English Patient and Mighty Joe Young. His most prominent movie role since Lost was as Princess Diana's lover Dr Hasnat Khan in the disastrous 2013 movie Diana. He has had more success on the small screen recently, appearing in popular series The Dropout and The Cleaning Lady.

Terry O'Quinn

Terry O'Quinn won an Emmy for his performance as John Locke, who was an intellectual character and a way into a lot of the mysticism around the island.

O'Quinn's breakthrough role was as a serial killer in The Stepfather and he later played Howard Hughes in The Rocketeer, as well as having a guest run on The West Wing — another of the best TV shows of the 2000s. Since Lost, he has primarily focused on TV supporting roles, including in sci-fi series Falling Skies as well as The Blacklist and its spin-off The Blacklist: Redemption.

Dominic Monaghan

Dominic Monaghan already had his most famous performance under his belt when he took on the role of rock band member and drug addict Charlie Pace in Lost. He rose to fame in the early part of the noughties as Merry in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As a result of this, he was arguably one of the most recognisable members of the Lost cast.

Read more: Dominic Monaghan pays tribute to Lord Of The Rings co-star Bernard Hill (PA Media)

His career since Lost has been varied, including a small role in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and a stint hosting his own wildlife series Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan. When you've got Middle-earth in your back catalogue, you can more or less do what you want.

Maggie Grace

Shannon Rutherford, as played by Maggie Grace, was not one of the most popular Lost characters due to her characterisation as a spoiled daddy's girl, with comparisons made to Paris Hilton. She went on to have a romance with Sayid.

Read more: Liam Neeson was not a fan of his iconic Taken speech (Yahoo Entertainment)

Maggie Grace has become involved in several other franchises since Lost, playing Liam Neeson's daughter in the Taken trilogy on the big screen and later appearing in The Twilight Saga. On TV, she appeared in Fear the Walking Dead and The Althea Tapes — a spin-off web-series focusing on her character.

Ian Somerhalder

Ian Somerhalder is best known for teen idol performances on a pair of TV shows. The first, of course, was Lost. Somerhalder played Boone Carlyle, who was Shannon's step-brother. He also had an unconventional relationship with John Locke, who became something like a father figure to him over their time together on the island.

Somerhalder's other major role was as the handsome, charismatic bloodsucker Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries. As well as his acting work in his two major TV shows, he has spent a lot of time campaigning for environmental causes.

Michelle Rodriguez

Michelle Rodriguez is unusual among the stars of Lost in that she has now become far more famous for another role than she ever was for her time on Lost. Rodriguez had already made the first Fast and Furious movie by the time she appeared in Lost, but it wasn't until she returned along with numerous other major cast members for the fourth movie in 2009 that the franchise started to catch fire.

Read more: How Michelle Rodriguez Foresaw Blockbuster Success for ‘Fast & Furious’ Franchise (The Hollywood Reporter)

She made her first Lost appearance in the finale of the first season before becoming a major cast member in season two. As Ana Lucia Cortez, she was a former cop who became something of a bully when she took on a leadership role among the survivors. Years on, it's her work as Letty in the Fast franchise for which she's most known.

Lost is available to stream now on Netflix UK.