Lindelof & Cuse on Charlotte's Birth Year Mix-Up: "Whoops"

In Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse's recent Lost podcast, they explained the discrepancy between Charlotte appearing on the island in 1974 and Ben saying in Season 3 that she was born in 1979 by blaming Rebecca Mader. According to DocArzt.com:

Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof explained that the character’s birthdate had been written as 1970 originally, but Mader had a diva moment on set and arbitrarily changed the date.

However, Mader, who apparently still listens to their podcast, shot back the following somewhat tongue-in-cheek response on her Facebook page:

I’m Pissed Damon and Carlton lied about me on the most recent PODCAST. The timeline error was their mistake and they are making it out to be my fault. NOT COOL! I just wanted to say that I NEVER changed my characters age on the set of LOST as Damon and Carlton accused me of on the most recent PODCAST. Charlotte Lewis was ALWAYS meant to be 28 and born in 1979. It was written in the script EP #402!!!!!!

...Which compelled Lindelof and Cuse to look further into the matter and then sheepishly apologize:

Rebecca is absolutely right and we apologize to both her and the entire fan community for screwing up the story [...] Our first mistake was the timeline gaffe, but the much more significant one was wrapping Rebecca up in this when she had nothing to do with it. Not her fault on any level. It was our bad. One hundred percent. We will say as much in a very special “Eating Crow” edition of our Podcast tomorrow. Speaking of which, what a wonderful world we live in where we can make a comment in a Podcast that triggers a response on someone’s Facebook page and that triggers a mea culpa on someone else’s blog. Ah, technology.

And if you actually want to read about where the confusion lay, here's their explanation:

There were a gazillion questions about the timeline discrepancy in that young Charlotte clearly exists in 1974, but wasn’t supposed to be born until 1979, per a single line of dialogue courtesy of Ben back in episode #402. When we inquired as to how this happened, the intel came back that we used Rebecca Mader’s birthday, July 2, 1979 because she was actually eight years YOUNGER than the character as originally conceived/scripted. We misremembered this as having come from Rebecca herself on the set, but in fact, it came several days earlier when our continuity expert Gregg Nations pointed it out and suggested using Rebecca’s actual birthday for Charlotte. And so, the mistake was OURS. Rebecca’s production draft DID have the date as being 1979.

Man, they could've just avoided this whole ordeal by following my own explanation of the timeline discrepancy: that Ben was working off her "official" biography, which naturally left out her time on the island and claimed she had been born the year she first popped up on the mainland. Problem solved!

TAGS: Ben, Carlton Cuse, Charlotte, Damon Lindelof, Gaffes, Goofs, Rebecca Mader, Season 5
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