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Lost Nikki and Paulo

American actress Kiele Sanchez and Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro play the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815.

The couple is introduced early in the third season.The producers of the show were often asked what the rest of the plane-crash survivors were doing because the show only focuses on approximately fifteen of the survivors, and the characters of Nikki and Paulo were created in response.Reaction to the characters was generally negative because of their abrupt introduction onto the show. Lost's show runner Damon Lindelof even acknowledged that the couple is "universally despised" by fans. As a result of this, the couple were killed off later in the same season.

Originating from Brazil, Paulo is a con artist working with his American girlfriend Nikki. Paulo works as a chef for a wealthy television executive in Sydney, Australia. Nikki guest stars on the executive's show and also seduces him, which makes Paulo uncomfortable. Paulo murders the executive by poisoning his food, allowing him and Nikki to steal his bag of diamonds, which are worth $8 million. Three days later, on September 22, 2004, Nikki and Paulo board Oceanic Flight 815 to return to Nikki's home in Los Angeles, USA.

They lose the diamonds in the plane crash and spend much of their time on the island searching for them. Paulo suspects that they are the only reason for their relationship, and thus does not tell Nikki when he finds them on their thirty-third day after the crash. One day while looking in the jungle, they come across the DHARMA Initiative's The Pearl, a scientific research station built in the early 1980s. Nikki is uninterested, but Paulo later returns by himself on his forty-ninth day on the island, hiding the diamonds in the toilet. While in the washroom, Paulo overhears two of the mysterious and dangerous island inhabitants known as the Others speak of capturing some of Paulo's fellow survivors, however he keeps this information to himself.

On their seventy-second day on the island, Nikki and Paulo join Locke when he ventures back to the Pearl Station, hoping to communicate with the Others. Paulo returns to the toilet to retrieve the diamonds, storing them in his underwear thereafter. As they leave, the group witnesses Mr. Eko's death and burial not far from The Pearl. Eighty-one days after the crash, Nikki finds out about Paulo hiding the diamonds from her. Furious, she releases a venomous spider on him that causes Paulo to be paralysed for the next eight hours. As he is entering the state of paralysis, Paulo admits that he only kept the diamonds from her because he thought that she would leave him after she got them. To Nikki's dismay, the death of the venomous spider only attracted more spiders which bite Nikki, so she is also temporarily paralysed. The pair are mistaken for dead after being discovered by the survivors. Nikki and Paulo are then buried alive by James "Sawyer" Ford and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes.

Characteristics

Paulo was written to be unlikable, with the hope that he would redeem himself when his backstory was revealed in his final episode. Paulo either resents or is indifferent toward the often heroic actions of some of the survivors, spending much of his time golfing. He complains to Nikki about not being included, however he does little to help out around the camp and does not try to improve his status in the survivors' hierarchy. When he does get chances to participate in treks, for example, when Hurley finds a car, Paulo is uninterested and discourages Nikki from joining Hurley on his adventure. Nikki tries to participate, tending to a wounded Mr. Eko and volunteering to go with Locke to the Pearl station, much to the surprise of Paulo. Paulo accompanies her, and he exhibits a constant sarcastic behavior in the Pearl.

Nikki is manipulative of Paulo and appears to care more about the diamonds than her relationship. After the crash, Paulo becomes suspicious that Nikki is just using him to get the diamonds. The first thing that she asks him after the crash is the whereabouts of the diamonds, and avoids answering Paulo when he asks if they would still be together if she did not need him to help find the diamonds. Paulo does what Nikki tells him to because of his fear of losing her, which results in their deaths.

Creation

At the end of the first season, the writers had the idea that one of the background survivors would emerge and receive an on-island flashback episode to help answer the question, "What the hell is going on with the other 35 people who nothing ever happens to?" At the end of the first season, Leslie Arzt was introduced, with the thought of giving background characters speaking roles, only for him to explode a few episodes later. It was originally conceived that only a woman would be introduced into the main storyline, however the idea later changed to include her boyfriend, as well. Nikki and Paulo were also originally set "to have anchored a winking arc of stories," however the writers instead decided to tell their story in one episode and quickly remove the characters, due to complaints about the characters and the third season's decline in viewership. It also became a running gag that Sawyer did not know who Nikki and Paulo were, calling them "Nina" and "Pablo" and asking "who the hell [they were.]" Lindelof later stated that "We had the feeling with Nikki and Paulo that it wasn't right about a month before the fans started reacting. We were already starting to think, 'Maybe our instinct here has been wrong.'"

Nikki and Paulo's original introduction onto the show was deleted for time from the final cut of the episode, "Further Instructions." They were supposed to be accidentally found by Claire Littleton in Jack's tent having sex in the middle of the episode. They were instead introduced at the end of the episode when Locke makes a speech.

Casting

Half-French, half-Puerto Rican Kiele Michelle Sanchez portrayed Nikki in six episodes of the third season of Lost. She had trouble filming her burial scene due to her claustrophobia.Rodrigo Junqueira dos Reis Santoro, who has been called "the Brazilian Tom Cruise" and "the Brazilian Russell Crowe," was cast in his first major American television role as Paulo on Lost. Appearing in a total of seven episodes, Santoro was reportedly paid "between $2634 and $6427 a week." Lindelof called Santoro "talented" and "perfect for Lost because he's a face that the American audience is not familiar with," despite being an award-winning actor in his home country of Brazil. A similar reason was given for casting actress Yunjin Kim, "the Korean Julia Roberts," in the role of Sun Kwon. Part of the reason that Santoro was cast over other actors was because of his attractive physique, however the writers said that they were not interested in writing for his character with that in mind, nor did he want them to.Santoro has stated that he enjoyed working with Sanchez, and hopes to return to work on Lost.