Mystery surrounded the days leading up to the interview with "Lost" cast member Maggie Grace.

Normally on set in Hawai'i, she was unable to meet in person and instead opted for a telephone interview from an unknown location.

It turns out Grace was in Los Angeles promoting her new film "The Fog," a remake of John Carpenter's 1980 horror flick. She juggled filming "The Fog" and "Lost" during the TV show's first season last spring.

"It's my first big fancy studio movie," she says. Her voice is surprisingly warm and sugarcoated, not at all what you'd expect from watching her play the saucy Shannon in ABC's "Lost."

Surprising also is that for the star of a horror movie, Grace is squeamish when it comes to scary movies.

"I haven't actually seen that many horror movies before," she said. "In accepting this role, I try to watch as many as I could possibly watch. I get really scared very easily. I have trouble sleeping as a consequence. ... I'm more of a BBC-period-film kind of gal."

Yet Grace assures that "The Fog" is scary, though it's rated PG-13. "Yeah, it's not as gratuitous as far as seeing someone's spleen burst or anything like that. It's relying more on building suspense and other less graphic ways (of frightening viewers). I think it's a great edge-of-your-seat kind of movie. Perfect for Halloween."

A remake, it's quite different from the original. The story has been changed, and the new film attempts to answer more of why the fog has embarked upon the small town of Antonio Bay. Original director Carpenter is one of the producers of this film.

As for who screams better, Grace or Jamie Lee Curtis (Curtis starred in the original "The Fog"), she says she'd have to defer to Curtis. Laughing, she says, "She's the scream queen after all. I'm not sure if that's her official title but ... I'll certainly do my best."

Grace might have won the screaming contest if it had been at the Emmys, where "Lost" was a surprise win for Best Drama. "We were all in hysterics," she said. The cast was expecting to hear the name of a show with several syllables, such as "Deadwood" and "Six Feet Under." When "Lost" was announced, "no one was ready for that," Grace said.

A group photo of the actors holding up their Emmys ran in newspapers, including The Advertiser, the next day:

"It was so great seeing the sheer joy in all of our faces."

Looking every bit the movie star, Grace wore a velvet and floral brocade Catherine Malandrino gown to the awards show. "I loved that dress ... very kind of period heroine-esque," she says. "It was kind of an 'in case' situation, too. ... We didn't (know) we were attending the Emmy's until a couple of days beforehand."

Grace has a sense of humor about herself. Halloween last year, she came as "Season 2 of Lost." Her costume was a "sort of animal and bone creation," which was supposed to signify "what would it be like if we run out of luggage and had no clothes."

This season, her character, Shannon, has started to shift from being self-absorbed to being more thoughtful of others, as in the scene where she's so concerned about looking after Walt's dog.

What can we expect from Shannon this season? "I think they're going to hopefully bring out some other colors in her. ... I look forward to bringing a little more depth to the character and there will be flashbacks to her past that will hopefully explain a little more of why she's built this facade," Grace says.

And expect to see her romance with Naveen Andrews' character, Sayid, heat up.

After buying a house in Hawai'i, Grace has two places she calls home: "I still have family on the Mainland, so of course I'm tied there. But I love Hawai'i. I've never been so fiercely happy anywhere as I've been the past year and a half. The people are amazing. I bought a house some time ago in season one, just because I loved it so much. No matter what happens with the show I'd love to have some time in the island and have a place (where) my family can come out."

Filming in Hawai'i has shielded cast members from the glare of the celebrity press, for the most part. However, photos of Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) and Evangeline Lilly (Kate) have sprung up in celebrity magazines. "I think it's a loss of innocence that there are now paparazzi (in Hawai'i)," Grace said. "The blessing of shooting in Hawai'i is that you don't have to deal with that sort of thing, and being able to focus more on work, but it's inevitable that it's going to happen eventually."

Now, mysterious events off-set are making front-page news: an armed robbery for Josh Holloway in his Hawai'i Kai home, and a stalking incident for Harold Perrineau. On "The View," Grace said, "everybody's OK," but she told interviewers she feels bad because for Holloway and his wife, their sense of safety was "shattered."

As for her love life, Grace is single but dating.

The "Lost" cast members are a happy, "exceptional" bunch, she said: "For the most part, everyone gets along so well," she says. "It's not the kind of catty undercurrent and crazy elements you hear about in some casts.