J.J. Abrams has one of the most crowded plates in the entertainment industry. He seems in the midst of monumental beginnings and endings as his latest hit series, “Fringe,” wrapped up a successful second season last night; he has several new TV and film projects in the works; and the teaser trailer for his next film, “Super 8,” is burning up the Internet. Oh yeah, and we can’t forget that other series that he co-created, the groundbreaking “Lost,” which is enjoying a very decisive finale this Sunday.
“There are days when I do work on six or eight things in one day, and I’ll come home, and [my wife] Katie will be like, ‘So how was your day?’ And I don’t even know,” he says. “There are days where it’s crazy, but a lot of days, it feels oddly focused and working.”
So how does he deal with such an intense workload?
“I’m getting some more fingers sewed onto my hand,” he jokes, before directing the attention to his co-workers. “I’m one of a number of people working on those things. It’s not like it’s me alone in this room.”
He’s editing a new show called “Undercovers” for NBC, which he wrote with Josh Reims (they previously worked together on “Felicity”). He’s also prepping another “Mission: Impossible” movie and working on another “Star Trek,” which is being written by Alex Kurtzman, Bob Orci and Damon Lindelof.
If that last name sounds familiar, it’s because Lindelof has been in the news lately with his partner in production, Carlton Cuse, as the ones who decided to end “Lost” after six seasons.
“I feel like ‘Lost’ did a wonderful thing in ABC, and Damon and Carlton came to this agreement to allow the show to end after the sixth season, which three years ago, I think was a shockingly bold thing for the network to agree to,” he says. “But I think it was really smart because I think that the show will end on its own terms. It will end in a way that, I think, will allow the show to not have gone on two years after it should have.”
