Father-and-son duo Kurt and Wyatt Russell talk about Season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and how they collaborated playing the same character.
It’s not every day we get a father-and-son duo sharing screen time, and it’s even rarer that they play the same character. Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters may be about larger-than-life beasts. In fact, it features perhaps the two most iconic kaijus of our generation. But Kurt and Wyatt Russell’s Lee Majors keeps the story grounded and gives the series heart. Lifestyle Asia joined an online press con where the two actors talked about portraying a character in different times of his life, how they collaborated in their portrayal, and Wyatt forgetting his hockey gloves.
[Hero and feature image: Apple TV]
Kurt and Wyatt Russell talk Monarch Season 2
Did you know where Lee Shaw’s story was headed from the beginning?
Wyatt Russell: That’s a bit of a dangerous question. We didn’t know the full arc. I think the writers adapt depending on how each season is received, so nothing is mapped out too far in advance. We didn’t know exactly where Lee was going, which helped and hurt at the same time.
Kurt Russell: With movies, you know the ending, you can reverse-engineer everything. But with a series, you’re basically making ten hours of content. That’s like five movies back-to-back, and you just don’t have the same time or clarity. You’re always trying to move things forward in a way that feels right, while honouring what season one promised. But no, we didn’t know exactly where episodes eight, nine, and ten were going.
What surprised you most when you read this season’s scripts?
WR: Titan X, for sure. How big a role it ended up playing, that was a surprise. It’s not from canon, not from monster lore, and yet we leaned on it heavily as the main antagonist. You still have Godzilla and Kong but Titan X carried a lot of the weight. I appreciated that. It shows confidence in the show that you can introduce something new instead of just relying on what people already know.
KR: The monsters in every way take up a much bigger space this season both in scale and importance. Season One was very much like going down the rabbit hole. This season flips that: you’ve got someone who’s been gone for decades suddenly thrust back into the world. It really expands the universe. And there’s more coming with young Lee’s story in the spin-off, and you’ll start to see how things were set up much earlier on.
There’s a lot to take in this season. But what I really appreciate is how Apple and Legendary keep the scale of the show so epic. Honestly, it feels like something you should see in a theatre.
WR: And some of the acting choices are big. [Laughs]
Speaking of which, Kurt, you’ve done lots of movies with iconic directors. How does a show like this blur the lines between TV and cinema? Is there even a difference nowadays?
KR: I think all science fiction comes down to two words: “what if”. I like the ones that you can have fun with like Big Trouble in Little China, but some of them are very, very real. What if you were in Antartica and you were part of this crew of people where you discover something that’s truly an enigma and fantastic and scary, and you end with not knowing really any more than when you first started?
I think Monarch follows in that tradition. Again, what I think is cool about it is that, yes, we have monsters, but it’s an epic feeling to what you’re watching. There are lot of home movie sets now that are big enough to capture a lot of that feeling and what that brings to this story. So if there’s a connection for me in terms of the ones that I’ve done, I would say that’s the thing that I guess I find a common thread with.
WR: And interestingly enough, some of those movies that people talk about a lot, like Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, Stargate…
KR: We could go on and on. [Laughs]
WR: They actually weren’t seen in theatres as much as they were seen on home video. So that experience or relationship your movies created with fan bases was largely created by people viewing it in their homes in the 80s and 90s, and there weren’t these types of setups that they have now, but that is sort of interesting.
Did you approach acting differently when facing off with Titan X compared to when you face Kong and other Monsters?
WR: Titan X was completely different—a completely different personality than Godzilla on set.
KR: [Laughs] Diva!
WR: Only ate fish products. That was difficult.
KR: Wyatt, you were in the discovery of what this thing is. By the time Lee gets to my age, he’s dealing with the problems of people who are still trying to figure out how to deal with it. His point of view is that’s great but we gotta survive while we’re doing that. So therein lies the dramatic tension between the human beings.
Practically, whether it’s Godzilla or something new, you’re reacting to something you can’t see. And the scale is so massive your brain can’t really process it. On set, it’s basically: “Look higher. No, higher, Wyatt.”
How did you two collaborate playing the same character at different points in his life? Did you run ideas by the showrunners?
KR: This casting wasn’t the original plan, but once it happened, we started thinking about how to make it work and really take advantage of it. It was a lot of being in constant contact and working together on a lot of the thoughts that we had when we first started.
WR: And also tailoring it to things we’re good at, things we find interesting beyond the idea of the casting. We wanted to expand that so that there’d be a lot more story than just a military guy who doesn’t listen to anybody. You’ve seen it a thousand times, and that wasn’t interesting to us. That was something that we really wanted to make sure came across in the portrayal of Lee.
How did you guys approach portraying Lee for Season 2?
WR: It feels easier because you’re not searching for the character anymore. In season one, you’re figuring it out. By season two, the train’s already moving, you just get on. It’s a lot more fluid.
KR: For me, it always comes back to young Lee and his relationship with Keiko and Billy. It’s a love triangle that plays out over decades, and then all these terrible things happen. That human story is what gives everything weight, especially when you’re dealing with monsters.
Kurt, was there ever a time you visited set and went into dad mode while watching Wyatt work? Did you tell him to fix his hair or tuck in his shirt properly?
KR: It’s funny because that kind of father-son relationship is not one we really have.
WR: “Tuck in your shirt.”
KR: [Laughs] The only time I can remember ever getting on him was when he was maybe 12. He forgot his gloves for a hockey game.
WR: You told me a million times.
KR: Anyways, an actor, I really appreciate his skill. I love watching what he’s done and the characters he’s played. I went to watch Wyatt shoot early in season one, his introductory scene. At first, I was just enjoying it, and then within about 45 minutes, I realised how important it was that I was there. I saw exactly how he was building the character. That became incredibly valuable for me when I had to play him later in life.
Wyatt, did you have similar thoughts as you watched your dad play the older version of Lee?
WR: For me, it was about understanding his range. He’s never played anything one-dimensional, so I knew I had to be flexible and give different options, different layers. So when it all comes together in editing, the performances match. And it was fun knowing that what I was doing would carry forward into what he was doing.
Season 2 of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is now streaming on Apple TV
This story first appeared here.
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.
