For Kurt Russell and son Wyatt Russelltogether in the new series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters gave them a unique opportunity to play the same character in two different time periods.
The father-son acting duo recently spoke with ET’s Nischelle Turner and reflected on the challenges of portraying the same man 50 years apart.
“We got the chance to play the same person, instead of the father and the son, so we started pushing it and saying, ‘Let’s make this right!’” Kurt, 72, explained.
“[Playing] Father and son are like low-hanging fruit,” says Wyatt (37). “And we have never been, genetically speaking, people who chose low-hanging fruit. It’s just never been interesting [for me]It’s never been interesting in his career.”
Instead, Wyatt explained that he and his father would rather ask the question, “What’s the hardest thing you can do?”
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters follows two siblings who follow in their father’s footsteps to discover their family’s connection to the secret organization known as Monarch. The pair follow clues that lead them to uncover events from the 1950s involving Agent Lee Shaw, and into the present, where the organization is threatened by what an older Shaw knows about their machinations.
The dramatic saga – spanning three generations – reveals hidden secrets and how epic, earth-shattering events can reverberate through our lives.
“I suddenly found myself saying, ‘God, well, Wyatt is going to create this character, and I’m going to play him later in life, so it all has to make sense,’” Kurt shared. I’ve watched it in life, but never before investigated it.”
“That was really interesting because I started seeing things about him that I felt were similar to me,” he added with a laugh.
For Wyatt, however, the paternal similarities apparently resonate even more strongly when it comes to his own 2-year-old son Buddy and Wyatt’s famous father.
“I see in my own son, more than in myself, the physicality of my father,” Wyatt joked. “Like, genes are recessive and traits are recessive, and there are certain things my son does that make me think, ‘Oh my God! You’re just like my dad.'”
Kurt and Wyatt’s new series is part of the Monsterverse cinematic universewhich started with that of 2014 Godzillaand includes Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) and Godzilla vs. Kong (2021).
For Kurt, being part of the world of colossi and titans was something he had been fascinated with since childhood.
“I was probably, I don’t know, maybe eight years old when I first saw it Godzillaand that was an image I’ve never forgotten,” Kurt shared. “What I love about science fiction is that great science fiction is an opportunity to do some great [philosophical] to ask.”
“And it was just a great opportunity for me to get to work with Wyatt,” he added with a smile.
As for Wyatt, he came into the project with no particular affinity for Kaiju films, and didn’t grow up watching the many iterations of Kaiju films. Godzilla.
“I wasn’t interested in monster movies, I didn’t see superhero movies, monster movies, I wasn’t into that,” Wyatt explained. However, he was drawn to the project because of what the producers were trying to achieve.
‘The challenge of what [they] What I wanted to do was create a show that went a little further than just running from a monster,” he explained.”[The] The challenge was to make you care about the characters and get real depth, so that’s what we took on. And it was fun to do that. It was nice to be able to do this with my father.”
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will premiere worldwide with the first two episodes on November 17, followed by one new episode every week through January 12, exclusively on Apple TV+.
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