Matthew Fox | Hawaii | Wyoming | EMOTIONAL FEATURE FILM WE ARE MARSHALL

Beach Boy

by Mark Seal

BEACH BOY

MATTHEW FOX, THE STAR OF THIS MONTH'S EMOTIONAL FEATURE FILM WE ARE MARSHALL AND ABC'S HIT SERIES LOST, IS A MAN OF SIMPLE PLEASURES, ALL OF WHICH HE CAN EASILY FIND IN HIS ADOPTED HOME STATE, HAWAII. . PHOTOGRAPH BY PEGGY SIROTA.

On the day of my conversation with Matthew Fox, an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale hits the Hawaiian islands. But Fox, at home on Oahu, remains, as always, calm. Calm under pressure has been Fox's mantra ever since he landed the role of Dr. Jack Shephard, the leader of the survivors on ABC's hit dramatic/adventure series Lost. This month, he stars in a feature film called We Are Marshall as another strong, heroic, calm-under-pressure type. The film, which costars Matthew McConaughey, is based on a true story about the resurgence of the Marshall University football team after the death of 37 of its players. Next year, Fox will star with Dennis Quaid in Vantage Point, a contemporary action thriller, set in Barcelona, about a kidnapping attempt on the president of the United States.

Fox was born and bred into a life of adventure, albeit a long way from Hawaii. He's a Wyoming boy, the middle of three cowboy brothers who grew up in the saddle on his family's longhorn cattle ranch in Crowheart, Wyoming. Fox attended Columbia University and planned to use his economics degree in a career on Wall Street. But he met a modeling agent and was whisked away into that world and then to television and film. He eventually landed a role on Fox's family drama Party of Five, which made him famous and earned him a spot in People magazine's 1996 "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" issue.