After the Lost cult show , actor Henry Ian Cusick returned to the big screen in The 100 , where he plays Marcus Kane, one of the main characters, since 2014. Metro met him on the occasion of the fifth season of the science fiction show, currently aired on CW and Netflix.

What was to be expected in this fifth season? 
We did not start the season when we left the series at the end of the fourth. There have been great changes, and the story shows what happened to the characters in the previous six years.

We sometimes have the impression that these science-fiction stories paint a realistic portrait of the future of humanity …
Yes, especially when we hear about global warming and the small number of actions taken to counter it. It’s like trying to kill yourself by radiation. In this season, we once again take a stand on what is happening in American politics and how it affects our planet.

How do you perceive the evolution of the series after four seasons? 
When we started, the series was pretty light. The pilot show might have suggested that The 100 was for teenagers: a light drama series. But we have moved towards something much darker; I really like that side and the way my character engages. At first, Marcus was a kind of authoritarian figure who followed all the rules. Now he is very peaceful, he holds to life in all its forms. He does not want to kill what he does not know anymore.

Why do you think that dystopia stories are so popular with young people? 
These stories have always been interesting. We have always been fascinated by the predictions of what the end of the world will look like. It’s fascinating to anticipate our end. And now, we do shows on zombies, on other stories of the genre, and it sticks to the wall.

It is now quite common to adapt books to the cinema. Do you think that a serial adaptation, on several episodes, allows to integrate more details? 
Yes, the series transmit these stories better than the movies. I even think that some films would have been better if they had been broadcast. However, for The 100 , I was asked not to read the book, since our version does not have much in common with the original material. My character, especially, is very different from that of the book, and I’m not curious to read the book because it has nothing to do with the version I play.

What is the success of the show? 
If anyone could explain why some series succeed, the others would only have to copy the formula and that would be all. I think with every success, even with Lost, there’s a little bit of magic that no one can reproduce. So we just have to continue doing what we can do, the best we can. With The 100 , we can say that we have a good script and that the story is interesting. These two factors combined should work well, but there is no magic formula for success.

The first of the series begins 97 years after a nuclear war that destroyed the planet, aboard l’Arche, a space station housing the survivors of the human race, when a group of 100 young criminals and delinquents are returned on Earth to test the conditions of life. But they are quick to point out that they are not the only humans to survive …