Will Hurley Get Lost in Love?

ABC's Lost (Wednesdays at 9 pm/ET) took another tiny step toward Housewives-like sudsiness last week when Hurley finally (thanks, James!) made his move with Libby. But is the most lovable castaway about to get his big heart broken? In between hosting poker games with his Lost buddies  "Beware of that aggressive Oahu police force!" we warned him  Jorge Garcia phoned TVGuide.com to talk about Hurley's present (and, of course, past) predicaments, his own Web savviness and the "monster" of a pet he has living with him.

TVGuide.com: It's been a while since the season premiere but I have to ask, since you do play Hurley: How satisfied were you with the hatch reveal?
Jorge Garcia: I was very satisfied.

TVGuide.com: How and when did you first learn what was down there?
Garcia: I didn't see the set until the first day I came to work [this season]. [Dog yelps in background.] In the script, there was a description of, you know, the blank computer screen and stuff, and I kind of figured that these things would all end up being inside the hatch, just from reading it.

TVGuide.com: You must have almost felt as if you picked up the wrong show's script at first.
Garcia: But that is a big Damon [Lindelof, series cocreator] thing, where he starts out with: "There's just a cursor.... Lost is supposed to be on now, right?" It says that right there in the action part of the script. He likes to write what the audience is probably thinking at that moment.

TVGuide.com: It must be cool to no longer have folks pester you about "What's in the hatch?! What's in the hatch?!"
Garcia: Yeah, it was definitely cool that they did a lot of hatch stuff at the beginning, to kind of take care of that.

TVGuide.com: What are people asking you about these days?
Garcia: Um... [Dog growls] most people say they like all the excitement that's been going on lately, and I in turn agree with them that the scripts are getting really good. Like, right after they meet "Mr. Friendly" [the bearded leader of the Others] and Jack says to Ana Lucia, "How long does it take to train an army?" that was a pretty cool direction to go in. [Dog yelps]

TVGuide.com: OK, I'm curious, what kind of creature have you got there?
Garcia: I have a "dach-huahua," a dachshund-Chihuahua mix. And a neighborhood cat kinda poked her head in the cat door, so the dog's been....

TVGuide.com: On edge? In attack mode?
Garcia: [Laughs] Yeah, she's been "protecting" the house for like 15 minutes now.

TVGuide.com: Are you a Web-savvy type, out there visiting the Hanso Foundation sites and stuff?
Garcia: I check out the Fuselage, because the questions get posted to me and I can answer them directly. But as far as the other websites, I will listen to iTunes podcasts, where a lot of people talk about what's on the different sites and what Easter eggs they're finding....

TVGuide.com: It must be wild as an actor to be a part of something bigger than what you're going to work five days a week to do.
Garcia: Yeah, it's really interesting. [Laughs] It's cool.

TVGuide.com: So what are we doing here with Hurley-Libby? Last week Sawyer egged him on to make his move. What is Hurley's reluctance?
Garcia: Sawyer certainly succeeded, we saw that much! I guess Hurley is a little bit of a chicken. It probably took him a long time to ask out Starla [in the Oct. 12 "Everybody Hates Hugo" flashback], as well, even though he'd been crushing on her for a while. But he wanted to ask her before it got out that he'd come into money.

TVGuide.com: Hurley couldn't have just gone up to Libby and say, "Hi, I'm worth $156,000"?
Garcia: He can't. He's not a man of that type of action.

TVGuide.com: How is Cynthia Watros as a leading lady for you?
Garcia: It's great, she's a lot of fun.

TVGuide.com: Did you two have a "get to know you" sit-down when you saw where they were heading with Hurley and Libby?
Garcia: No. We knew it was coming after they had me help her build her shelter, but it wasn't like we had any specific conversations about it.

TVGuide.com: Just watch  you kids will hit it off and it will be revealed that she's a mole for the Others and she'll go all evil on ya.
Garcia: [Laughs] Yeah, who knows!

TVGuide.com: Have you had the chance to do any stand-up comedy since you started Lost?
Garcia: I have not, actually, but that was more of something I dabbled in than really pursued. It might be cool to do it again because now I'd get to play a better room than a coffee shop!

TVGuide.com: What sorts of things did you riff on?
Garcia: Well, that's the other thing. I'm on a Disney show, but I was a little more blue with my material.

TVGuide.com: Do you still like the way Hurley fits into the canvas, kind of the happy-go-lucky guy?
Garcia: I like it a lot. And one of the things that is interesting is that it seems like his relationship with Jack has changed a bit. Jack still looks out for him, but there's more of a standoff between them on occasions, which I think is very interesting.

TVGuide.com: Let's talk about your massive CD collection. How massive is it?
Garcia: It's getting bigger. My girlfriend's out of town this weekend, so I went back to ripping CDs onto the hard drive and stuff, and I have....

TVGuide.com: Hundreds?
Garcia: Oh, easy. The only way I measure it now is in iTunes, and it says my entire collection would last 91 days. I used to have them organized alphabetically on shelves, but when I knew I was moving [to do Lost], I took them out of the jewel cases, put them into sleeves to compress the space, and then shipped them all to Hawaii.

TVGuide.com: Have you upgraded to a video iPod yet? Because then you could, like, watch downloaded Lost episodes.
Garcia: The show gave us video iPods for Christmas, actually!

TVGuide.com: The "big story" last week was how Lost's original cast members had been offered a raise. How might you spend yours?
Garcia: I would never get this, but I've always wanted one of those automatic card shufflers like they have in Vegas, the kind that handle three decks at a time. We have poker games sometimes, and that'd be a great thing to have.

TVGuide.com: You know, we need another Hurley flashback episode, to show us exactly how and why his friendship with Johnny (DJ Qualls) became fractured.
Garcia: Right. There's definitely the possibility for future stuff to do with DJ. I know Damon has mentioned to DJ there's the possibility of other stuff later. DJ's into it because he liked coming out and being a part of it.

TVGuide.com: So, you don't know for sure if you'll get another flashback episode this season?
Garcia: I don't know for sure. I'm hoping for like, a mental-institution story. Let's do that story and find out what happened there.