Danielle Rousseau - Development

Development

Rousseau is named after French-Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Although Rousseau is French, actress Mira Furlan is Croatian, which led to speculation that Rousseau is not really from France. In one of the official Lost podcasts, producer Carlton Cuse joked, "any French woman who speaks with a Croatian accent and has been living in the woods for sixteen years eating bugs ... has got some issues, and those issues need to be overcome before she can actually go and embrace Alex". Furlan understood Rousseau's decision to not meet her daughter, believing that no one can ever be prepared for that moment. Furlan met Raymonde for the first time just minutes before shooting their reunion scene in the season three finale. The actors believed the scene to be a "huge moment" for their characters, which Furlan described as a "basic human moment". Furlan was glad to have "such a beautiful partner", and noted their physical resemblance.

Furlan is said to have asked for her character to be written out of the series because she did not want to travel to Hawaii to film her scenes, although she later called this an untrue rumor. The producers decided for Rousseau to be shot, with the possibility of her returning in season five. Co-show runners and executive producers Damon Lindelof and Cuse originally intended for Rousseau to get her own flashback episode in season four, however as a result of the Writer's Strike, this did not come to pass. When asked whether Rousseau would have a flashback in season five, Lindelof said that Rousseau's story would "definitively" be revealed, but that "to use the word flashback would be disingenuous". Cuse revealed that they were trying to steer away from the word flashback and were "embracing a whole new word". He explained that "there will still be flashbacks and flash-forwards on the show, but we're going to do something different this year. We're going to mix it up." Instead of using flashbacks and flashforwards like in previous seasons, stories of the fifth season will play out both on and off the island stories in different points in time. The writers were supposedly scheduling an appearance by Furlan for the fifth season, but Furlan did not end up making an appearance. However, she returns in the form of Rousseau's "sideways" counterpart (who never crashed on the Island, lost Alex or went insane) in the sixth season.