Note: This interview discusses plot points of the second episode of The Leftovers.
Since the first season of The Leftovers, the HBO series has toyed with the running gag—one of the few in a drama suffused with anger and grief—that the 2 percent who disappeared during the Sudden Departure included the entire cast of Perfect Strangers. Co-creator Damon Lindelof has said the idea, which originated with producer Jackie Hoyt, was initially sort of a throwaway gag, meant to illustrate anomalies and arbitrariness of the rapture-like event. But the joke became its own compelling mystery in the second season, when it was revealed that Mark Linn-Baker, playing himself, had faked his Departure and absconded down to Mexico. And while viewers might have assumed that was the end of it, leave it to The Leftovers to turn this into its own compelling plotline. The third season’s second episode, the aptly titled “Don’t Be Ridiculous,” found Baker returning in a very meaningful way, when he contacts Carrie Coon’s Nora about a project that could potentially reunite her with her family—and him with his cast mates. The A.V. Club spoke to Linn-Baker about the surprisingly crucial role he’s played within the show.
The A.V. Club: How did you first learn that you were a part of The Leftovers universe?
Mark Linn-Baker: In the first season, they called and asked if they could use Perfect Strangers clips, and I gave my permission—you know, it was in the scenes where Justin Theroux’s character goes to visit his dad, Scott Glenn, in the asylum. There’s several scenes where they’re watching Perfect Strangers on television, and they talk about the fact that the entire cast has departed. And in that first season I had gone in and auditioned for a role as an administrator in an office, where I’d be talking to Carrie Coon’s character. I did a good audition, but I heard back that they had already referenced me, so they didn’t want to use me playing somebody else, since I had already appeared on the television in clips as myself. That didn’t make sense to them.
AVC: How did that feel, finding out that you’d been raptured?
MLB: I found it amusing! That was fun. And then of course, Damon [Lindelof] called in the second season and asked if I would be interested in coming in to play myself, his idea being that the entire cast had been raptured except for me, and that I had faked my Departure and was hiding in Mexico… It’s a little sleazy. But it was fun to play the sleazy Mark Linn-Baker. The first season was the innocent, Departed Mark Linn-Baker, the second season was the sleazy con artist Mark Linn-Baker, and now the third season Mark Linn-Baker is something else altogether.
AVC: What do you think you would have been doing for those several years down in Mexico?
MLB: Drinking! A lot of tequila, a lot of mezcal, trying to forget.
AVC: How were you approached about returning for this season?