Importance of film role isn't lost on Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox, busy with his role as the fictional take-charge doctor Jack Shephard on ABC’s hit drama ‘‘Lost,’’ had just six weeks to prepare for shooting the real-life drama ‘‘We Are Marshall.’’

The movie chronicles what happened after the Marshall University football team, most of its coaches, and some fans were killed when their chartered plane crashed on Nov. 14, 1970.

In the film, which opens in theaters Friday, Fox portrays Red Dawson, a 27-year-old assistant coach who gave up his seat on the flight at the last minute as a favor to a colleague.

Numb with survivor’s guilt, the coach and his city of Huntington, W.Va., will spend the next year coping with the horrific loss while debating whether to restore the shattered football program.

‘‘I hadn’t heard of the story before, so I had some catching up to do,’’ said Fox during a visit to Boston earlier this month.

The film was directed by McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol), who directed the ‘‘Charlie’s Angels’’ movies. The screenplay was written by Jamie Linden, who heard about the story from the student newspaper at Florida State University, which both he and Dawson attended.

As moviegoers will learn, a new team did return to the field the following year under the guidance of young coach Jack Lengyel (played by Matthew McConaughey) and the more reluctant Dawson. It would take more than 20 years and plenty of losses, but Marshall University eventually won its first Division 1-AA championship in 1992.

For the citizens of Huntington, the crash is still a painful subject. ‘‘There won’t be a dry eye in the house at the premiere,’’ said H. Keith Spears, a 1970 Marshall graduate who knew many of the 75 victims. Spears is now vice president of communications and marketing at the university. He worked with the filmmakers to ensure accuracy and sensitivity.

‘‘We had three broad parameters,’’ he said. ‘‘Honor the people on that plane and their surviving families. We didn’t want to see a plane crash and burning bodies. Two, show respect to Huntington and West Virginia. No Beverly Hillbillies please. Three, protect the integrity of the university. It was a great institution prior to the plane crash and it was a great institution after. We are not plane-crash university.’’

Spears, who became choked up during his interview, said he was relieved when McG chose not to film at the actual crash site. ‘‘I took him there. He looked at me and said, ‘This is sacred ground, isn’t it?’.’’

The filmmakers shot the emotional scene — where townsfolk rush to the burning wreckage on the outskirts of the city — at a similar-looking site in Atlanta instead.

‘‘We put an enormous amount of trust in what I consider a young group of people,’’ said Spears. For the university, he added, it was a tug of war on whether to trust strangers with the story. Ultimately, he said, the university thought ‘‘would [the victims] ever forgive us if we denied them a chance to share their legacy to the world?’’

That kind of sentiment made Fox tread lightly when he approached Dawson for his recollections. In the film, Dawson is portrayed as a man ridden with guilt because he personally recruited 20 of the 37 players killed. At the same time, Dawson felt an obligation to rebuild the program.

The former coach, who left the game after that 1971 comeback year, is still living in Huntington but could not be reached for this story. He served as an adviser for the film, part of which was shot in Huntington, and even had a cameo role as a coach of rival school Morehead State.

‘‘For an actor to tell a true story of a person who is still alive and who is going to be involved in the making of the film, that’s a risky proposition,’’ said Fox.

To earn Dawson’s trust, Fox did the unthinkable: He asked the man to take a 10-hour flight to Hawaii, where ‘‘Lost’’ is filmed. ‘‘This is a guy who hasn’t flown much for 35 years,’’ said Fox.

The change of scenery broke the ice. The men spent several days together before Fox brought up the accident. ‘‘I took him to my home. He met my kids. My wife cooked for him,’’ said Fox. ‘‘It turns out we like a lot of the same types of things. We love the outdoors, we love fishing and wide-open solitude types of spaces.’’

When Dawson was finally ready to talk, Fox recalled, he said, ‘‘.‘If I get choked up, we’ll have to stop. I’ll get it together and we’ll continue.’..... For 35 years, he’s been carrying a burden. ..... I think the making of this movie has been a very cathartic thing for Red.’’

For Fox, 40, who played football at Columbia University in the 1980s, ‘‘We Are Marshall’’ came at a time when he’d begun looking beyond television. Even though the actor enjoys his current job (and has no insight on when it might wrap up), he won’t be looking to do another drama when the series eventually ends, he said.

‘‘The next stop for me, my wife, and children is films,’’ he said. Fox, who grew up on a ranch in Wyoming before attending Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts for one year and then Columbia, added, ‘‘I have no intention of moving back to Los Angeles.’’

While the actor is pleased with the hype and excitement ‘‘Lost’’ generates, he does wonder about the fans who can’t wait for all the answers to the show’s mysteries. ‘‘I’m always a little surprised how impatient people are with that,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s like being impatient with life. I’m not that impatient about finding out where I’m going to be a year from now.’’

To be sure, ‘‘Lost’’ fans have become notorious for their conspiracy theories, Internet rumors, and the recent suggestion in Entertainment Weekly by author Stephen King that the entire show may end up being Jack’s hallucination. In a nod to the hysteria, Fox spoofed the fans in a skit on ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ this month.

‘‘I think there’s a point where you cross over into wanting your own theories to prove true to the point where you are too overly anxious about [them],’’ he said.

Still, Fox is quick to say the series has opened doors for him. Next year, he will appear in the film ‘‘Vantage Point,’’ a thriller about a kidnapping attempt on the president of the United States. Fox will play the lead secret service agent, whose partner is Dennis Quaid.

After hosting ‘‘Saturday Night Live,’’ Fox feels inspired to try more comedy. ‘‘I had so much fun. I’m still in a rush from it,’’ he said.

Can the actor — known for his intensity — really loosen up?

‘‘Up to this point, I’ve only shown people the really serious, dramatic side of Matthew Fox,’’ he insists. ‘‘Anybody close to me knows I have a quirky sense of humor.’’

Joking aside, Fox is content at the moment that Dawson, who watched the finished ‘‘We Are Marshall’’ a while ago, was happy with the actor’s portrayal. ‘‘He called me right after,’’ recalled Fox. ‘‘I could tell by his voice that he absolutely loved it. He said, ‘Well Foxy, you made me a superstar.’.’’

Now Fox must wait to see if the critics agree.

Suzanne Ryan can be reached at sryan@globe.com. For more on TV, go to boston.com/ae/tv. For more on movies, go to boston%.com/ae/movies/blog.