The ABC mindbender “was a show I watched and loved,” Michael Cudlitz says, so he was stoked to nab the part of “Big Mike” Walton, Ana Lucia’s partner in the Los Angeles Police Department.

“There was a possibility I was going to do a bunch more early on, and then stuff changed with the storyline, and I wasn’t on the show anymore,” he recalls, adding that Hawaii was gorgeous — but he felt intense island fever and really missed his family, who wasn’t with him during shooting.

“But then they brought me back at the very, very end, with a flash-forward with Hurley, and I was very flattered by that. They went out of their way to keep me connected to the show.”

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