Don’t look to actor Josh Holloway to defend the actions of his character, the wayward Sawyer of ABC’s hit “Lost.”

“He makes the same mistakes over and over again,” says Holloway. “He’s not a dumb person, but he could wise up … I want Sawyer to die badly, kind of as (the) last (heroic) thing (he does). He could do something good.

“There is no redemption for Sawyer. He doesn’t embrace it. His power is in being indifferent.”

But he does see Sawyer opening up to new experiences with this new round of “Lost” episodes, which can be seen at 10 p.m. EST Wednesdays. For instance, he’ll have a chance to be in love with Kate (Evangeline Lily). And, once he returns to the castaways’ island, he’ll also have more chances for humor.

Of course, “I’m sure he’ll have a new head wound, very soon, from somebody, probably a woman,” Holloway says with a laugh.

Indeed, Sawyer does tend to get hit a lot, in the head, and by females.

Undoubtedly those hits to the head aren’t what most of his female fans want to do to him. Sawyer, as well as Holloway, has taken over “Lost” as one of the show’s leading sex symbols in the past three seasons.

Holloway works a room full of journalists easily, complying with most requests for interviews and small talk. He flashes a dandy smile and jokes easily. The 38-year-old, longtime-married Holloway is the life of a party.

Like Sawyer, Holloway has always had a way to charm females and males.

The north Georgia native grew up in a trailer and once made his wages as a model. A retail-store employee early on, Holloway used to steal from the store and then profit off the store’s return policy.

He made enough off that to pay his rent and get through school.

Sawyer would have been proud of the scheme. Holloway, in retrospect, is not. But he says he did what he did to survive.

And in that way, he finds the core of Sawyer.

“Actually, he’s 100 percent me, a small part of me, but a part of me anyway. Sometimes, as an actor, if you play the idea of a character, you’re really just one step away from playing yourself,” he says.

The same kind of unruliness also drove Holloway to take off to Europe when he was younger and hitchhike his way around.

Playing such a jerk so convincingly has been a boon to Holloway’s career. “The Whisper,” a kidnapping drama in which he stars, is set for theaters this year. More films are in the works.

Not bad for a guy who was close to bailing on the whole acting thing just as he auditioned for “Lost.”

Now Holloway says he can’t believe he’s still playing Sawyer this far into “Lost’s” run. He expected the character to be killed off early on.

“I remember telling my wife, ‘Baby, I’m sorry. I just know they are going to kill me off. He’s got no redemption. He’s just (a jerk),’ ” he says.

Saving Sawyer was a dash of comedy _ remember those early days when he wore a makeshift pair of women’s glasses so he could read? “I was shocked people were responding,” he says.

“Here’s my theory why: In today’s society, where you have to be so politically correct, you can’t say the things that Sawyer does. He lets it out for us … I’m that way.

“I’m from the South, where I am almost too polite in situations. Sawyer can set kind of hard boundaries. To go to work and do it is kind of nice. I can breathe.”