In the spring of 2004, actor Jorge Garcia was riding in the back of a van along Oahu’s Mokulē’ia Beach, trying to process the uncanny scene he was approaching. Scattered across the sand was the wreckage of a massive passenger jet; one wing from the mangled fuselage pointed up toward the sky, all surrounded in a haze of smoke and fire. He started laughing to himself — his involuntary response to any kind of discomfort. Still, there was a feeling he couldn’t shake: “This job is so much bigger than me.”

He was right. As Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, the cursed lottery winner and crash survivor of Oceanic Flight 815, Garcia became part of the television juggernaut known as “Lost.” Over the course of six seasons, the show drew in millions of viewers by delivering something unlike anything else in the mid-2000s TV landscape: a compelling mystery centered on the interwoven lives of a diverse ensemble all fighting for survival. There were love triangles, villains, antiheroes, flashbacks, flash-sideways and a trail of clues that fans eagerly pieced together in an attempt to understand the cryptic island at the center of the show.

Though he might’ve had an inkling of what was to come when he stepped on Mokulē’ia Beach 20 years ago, Garcia couldn’t have known how it would all end. In honor of the show’s 20th anniversary (it premiered Sept. 22, 2004), the actor spoke with De Los about his memories of filming the pilot, the show’s legacy and his reflections on Hurley’s journey from (spoilers ahead!) an unlucky but kindhearted fan favorite to the inheritor of the island.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse hadn’t fully sketched out the character of Hurley when the casting process began. What was your experience like auditioning?

There was a breakdown with a character called Hurley, and he was listed as something along the lines of a 50-year-old redneck. [Laughs] I remember specifically reading in the description that he was described as a “redshirt,” which I’m guessing meant that he wasn’t going to survive the pilot. But they called me in, and the only material they had for the guys were Boone (Ian Somerhalder) sides and Sawyer [Josh Holloway] sides, so they had me read the Sawyer sides.

How much did you know about Hurley when it came time to shoot the first season?

I didn’t know anything about his back story, just what you see in the pilot. During that first summer, there was a small circle of writers assigned to come up with back stories for the characters, and Javier Grillo-Marxuach was one of them. He’s the one who decided to make Hurley a nickname, and make his real name Hugo Reyes, since I was going to be playing him. He came up with this idea that Hurley was a repo man who was just so charming and good at his job that people would just end up giving their stuff back.

It didn’t end up being his back story, but it’s funny how certain ideas still made their way into the show. Like when Jack (Matthew Fox) doesn’t want people to know he’s a doctor, he says he’s a repo man. Or how Hurley was described as a bit of a redneck, but Sawyer ended up being more of that role. Originally, I think he was more of a slick New Yorker in the initial description.

The show obviously ended up becoming this huge phenomenon, but what were your impressions going into the first season?

When I got the job all I knew was that [executive producer and director of the pilot] J.J. Abrams had a pretty good track record and that it was going to be shot in Hawaii, so the worst outcome was that I would get a bit of a Hawaiian vacation. When we started filming, I remember we were going to have to run away with an explosion going off behind us. I was thinking, “Are we going to do that thing where we dive after the explosion? Does that happen in real life or just in the movies?” Then, J.J. gets on the megaphone and says, “OK, after the explosion, dive into the sand.” We were high-fiving each other that we were getting to do such an action movie thing.

In a show that could get pretty heavy and intense, Hurley provided a lot of comedic relief, especially through his dynamic with Sawyer. What do you think made him such a fan favorite?

In Season 1, there was definitely this dynamic established where Hurley started taking on the voice of the audience. He would be the one asking, “What’s that in the woods shaking the trees?” Later, when things started getting more complex, they wrote that scene where Hurley is trying to understand time travel on the island, and they’re just getting frustrated trying to explain that to him. [Laughs] So I think that role kind of endeared him to the audience, and a lot of people gravitated toward him because of that.

In my house, we would always look forward to the Hurley episodes, not just because of the comedy, but because the dynamic between him and his Latino family felt so familiar.

That’s really nice to hear, because when you’re in the middle of doing it, you’re not thinking about the impact it might have on a Latin household. So to hear that families were looking forward to that just really means a lot. I mean, that first summer of shooting the show, we had no idea if we were going to find our audience; all we knew was that we were doing something that wasn’t being done on TV right now. Like that first Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) episode, more than half of it was subtitled.

It wasn’t just Hurley, but his parents, played by Lillian Hurst and Cheech Marin, who provided a ton of laughs. What did you enjoy about their relationship?

Oh man, when I found out they cast [Cheech Marin], I thought that was such an inspired choice. It was just great getting to hang out with him, because he’s been in the business for such a long time that he had stories for days. But the dynamic with Hurley and his mom? I always think about that scene where she’s hooking up with his dad again, and she turns away the statue of Jesus and says, “I have needs.”

How did your family respond to the frenzy the show created?

They definitely weren’t in the circle of viewers who went deep trying to figure out what everything meant. But that was the first job I had that my mom was kind of proud of, and bragged about. I got a job on “Becker” where I did 13 episodes, and that was the job that made her feel like I could actually do this for a living. But “Lost” was the real pride job. Once my mom saw that the show had such a great fandom and fervor around it, she was into the idea of being Hurley’s mom for sure. [Laughs]

So much of the show is told in flashbacks that either build on or completely reframe the characters as we know them on the island. What was it like as an actor getting new information like that as you go?

My approach to Hurley was always to take the information I did have about the character and then fill in the blanks myself. I remember having discussions with other people on the show where, when they would find out something new, they would be like, “Oh, well if I had known that, I would have done this differently.” But I enjoyed that, because I feel like those contradictions are what make people human. Those inconsistencies are interesting, and that’s what makes a character feel like a real person. So for me, in Season 1, people’s characters were already getting second episodes, and I was thinking “We’re never gonna find out what my angle is.” Then Damon [Lindleof] called me and told me that Hurley was a lottery winner, and was actually really rich. I remember thinking, “Cool, but where’s ‘The Twilight Zone’ part of this?” And finally, I got the script of the episode, and that’s when I got the reveal of the numbers.

In Season 2, Hurley has this great romance play out with Libby (Cynthia Watros) that kind of comes full circle in the end. What was it like to play out that part of his story?

To get to have a romance, even as tragic as it ended up being, is just not the kind of thing that a character like mine usually gets to do. Hurley is not the type of guy who gets to have a kiss on top of a cliff top, so I just never expected to get to do that. But also, a crazy part of doing this was that we relocated to Hawaii to be part of a show where people were always getting killed off. So, from one day to the next, your friends and cast mates wouldn’t be there anymore. I got to do this great work with Cynthia in Season 2, then I didn’t see her again for years, and so when we did reunite, it was so great. That whole final season, there were so many mini reunions. By the time we got to the church scene where we were all together, it was so special.

In a show that was famous for its twists and turns, people were on the edge of their seats trying to figure out how it would all end. Do you remember reading that final script?

I do remember because they called me and said they wanted to do an extra DVD feature where they show how the script gets made and delivered to us when it’s ready. They were so secretive about the scripts. I mean, every season, for the finale, there would be a huge chunk missing, and those scenes would only go to the people who were in them. But near the end, when Damon and Carlton would come out to Hawaii, they would pull people aside periodically, and tell them what happened in the secret pages.

So when they brought in the script, they had a guy come in to shoot some B-roll for the DVD. I started reading through my copy, and as I’m going through it, I think the people in the room started to notice a change in the energy. Suddenly, the camera guy started rolling, and he captured me kind of welling up.

We learn in the last season that Hurley is one of the candidates who might become the caretaker of the island. What was your reaction when you realized he had been chosen?

I was really moved because it was such a huge reward for his whole journey to get to do that. To have the island handed over to him? I wasn’t expecting that at all. This was Jack’s story. It starts with his eyes opening, and ends with his eyes closing. It always felt like he was the sun and we were the planets revolving around his experience. So to have Hurley step up into that role — I don’t know, I’m grateful that they did it one step at a time because just sitting back and thinking about it, if they had explained this as his arc, it would’ve been unfathomable. I can’t imagine they knew that from the beginning. I was speechless, just completely at a loss for words at how the Hurley story wrapped up.

Looking back 20 years later, what are some of the highlights you look back on from this experience?

There were so many incredible opportunities that “Lost” created. There was a great joy in the fact that we got to do it in Hawaii. There was this feeling, especially early on, where it felt like we were the tinkers in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” We’d just go off into the jungle, work on our little show, send it over to the mainland and let them deal with the rest of it. We didn’t think about it, until suddenly, here you were getting an invite to go to the Golden Globes to represent the show.

Do you have any plans for a rewatch?

You know, we used to have this tradition that started in the first season where, if an episode was featuring your character’s back story, we’d all go to your house and potluck when it was airing so we could watch it together and celebrate. I’ve seen pieces of the show, and discovered that the parts that really bring me back are the blooper reels. The second someone screws up and drops character, it was like, “Ah, that’s the person I know. That’s who I remember. That’s who I sat under a tent with and hung out with while we waited for our next scene.”

I was just recently doing something where I was rewatching some of the show’s iconic moments, actually, and when I saw the scene where we jump-start the van, it actually gave me goosebumps. The way they held out the suspense for so long, Michael Giacchino’s score comes in, and then Three Dog Night kicks in? That made me think I need to go back and rewatch the show. It’s just insane that 20 years went by so fast. I’m grateful that I’m still working, still in the business, but it just feels incredibly lucky to me to have been a part of something so special.

Cat Cardenas is a writer and photographer based in Austin. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ and other publications.