With Lost rewatches happening all the time on streaming services, it’s easy to forget the show ended 12 whole years ago! And it wasn’t long after the acclaimed series took its final bow that star Matthew Fox followed suit.

The Party of Five alum did a couple movies afterward, notably playing a shredded villain in Alex Cross and an anti-hero cowboy in the underseen horror/Western Bone Tomahawk. But after that? He walked away from the business.

In fact, it’s actually been over seven years since Fox stepped in front of the camera!

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He’s finally making his return in a new show called Last Light, and in a press conference for the Peacock series, he took a moment to explain his extended hiatus. On why he chose the moment he did to stop acting, he explained it was starring in that Western that marked the occasion for him:

“I kind of had a bucket list in my mind of things that I wanted to accomplish in the business, and after I did Bone Tomahawk in 2014, that had kind of completed the bucket list. I wanted to do a Western. It’s a very odd Western, but it’s a Western. And so that sort of completed the bucket list.”

As for why he’d already been thinking about retirement, he explained that was all about focusing on his family — before his kids got too old and he missed it all! He recalled:

“At that time in my life, our kids were at an age where I felt like I needed to really re-engage. I had been focused on work for some time, and [my wife] Margherita had been running the family so beautifully, but I felt like it was time to be home, and I really felt like I was retiring from the business, and working on other creative elements that are really personal to me — some music and writing.”

So why come back? Well, it was all about the story of Last Light that appealed to him:

“I’ve just spent seven years living my life with my family and pursuing things that I’m passionate about, but storytelling is in my DNA in some way, and I felt like this form of storytelling was something that I wanted to reengage with, and see how it felt. And I’m really happy that I did so — it’s been good.”

This time he’s taking more ownership as an executive producer — something that he’d added to his wish list:

“I kind of got to a point where I thought that maybe the bucket list included executive producing. I’d never done that before. The opportunity to be involved in Last Light came along, and so I wanted to give it a shot. And it felt like the right time.”

Are YOU excited to see Matthew Fox back on the small screen?

[Image via ABC/Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube.]