Every week, the cast of ABC's "Lost" gathers for a viewing party, generally hosted by the performer whose backstory makes up the night's episode. This Wednesday (Jan. 19), the episode focuses on Harold Perrineau Jr.'s Michael, but the actor is expecting to be Stateside doing promotion for the show. It's fitting that Perrineau, a familiar face, but hardly a household name, should miss his own party.

"I'm one of those guys that whenever I'm doing a project, people will notice me then," laughs the unassuming actor. "People will walk up to me and go 'Oh my God, you're the guy from 'O,z'' or 'Oh my God, 'The Matrix'' or something like that, so now it's just 'Oh, 'Lost.'' It stays the same, which is fortunate for me, because I guess I'm working."

Since obfuscating his age to play a 16-year-old in 1995's "Smoke," the 36-year-old Perrineau has built up a resume characterized by its unpredictability. He's alternated between gritty and independent projects like HBO's prison drama "Oz" and blockbusters like the "Matrix" trilogy. He's gone macho in films like the David Mamet survival drama "The Edge" and he's wore a dress in both "Romeo and Juliet" and "Woman on Top."

"On one hand, it's really the thing I set out to do," Perrineau says of his eclectic choices. "I've always been interested in being an actor. That's the thing that I really love to do. On the other hand, it makes it hard to identify me, so it means I have to keep proving myself. That's the part that becomes a little difficult. Clearly I can do many things, but because I do so many things, I always have to prove I can do the next thing as well."

A theater-trained actor, Perrineau admits that he's occasionally been frustrated to play a character without a background. Usually he prepares for parts by working up a full biography on his character, but "Lost" has forced him to fly without a net.

"You move this way or that way because of your past, your present and where you're going," he explains. "I like to know where he's been and why he talks the way he talks and walks the way he walks and why he relates to people the way he relates to people. In the absence of that, all I have to rely on are my instincts. Michael winds up being a lot more like me."

One of the greatest challenges of Perrineau's "Lost" role has been his interactions with Malcolm David Kelley's Walt, the son Michael has never connected with.

"Michael's not a father," Perrineau emphasizes. "Michael's a dad. He has a son. But he's not a father."

In the real world, though, Perrineau is a dedicated father. In fact, as this interview is being conducted, he's preparing for Freaky Hair Day at his 10-year-old daughter's school.

"For them it would have been easier to have somebody who had no idea how to handle kids," he admits. "In the pilot, J.J. [Abrams] would say to me, 'You know too much about kids. The way you speak to him is too much like you know what you're doing.' I would have to go, 'Oh, right.'"

Like the rest of the "Lost" ensemble, Perrineau is sworn to secrecy when it comes to his character's upcoming twists and to what Wednesday's episode will reveal about his past. Even if he bound by the show's cryptic code, though, Perrineau is in the dark as to which aspects of the script will end up in the episode.

"We'll get to understand a little bit more about this father and son and why the dynamic is the way it is and the reasons for that are really," he says, trying his hardest to remain vague. "How do you say something without saying anything at all? The thing I think is the best about it is the thing about Walt. There's something about Walt that nobody realized yet. That's about it."

Given that Abrams has said that Michael is one of his favorite characters, big surprises may be in store.

Perrineau resists the temptation to speculate on the show's myriad oft-debated mysteries. While many of his colleagues have taken to the Internet to enter into debates about the mystical nature of the island or the exact identity of the creatures in the jungle, Perrineau is having none of it.

"I'm not so into the guessing games," maintains Perrineau. "For me, the writers are smarter than I'm ever going to be. They've got an idea and I'm just going to sit back and enjoy and watch their idea and unfold.

He adds, "If we are in Purgatory, I'm really confused. If that's what this has been about, then I'm like, 'Dang, you've got me, man.'"