Monarch’s most tantalizing bit of casting was a happy surprise for the creators

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is one of the best surprises of the year.

After years of mostly fun Monsterverse films from Legendary Pictures that largely struggled to focus on the human elements of Godzilla stories, the series comes from Apple TV Plus Monarch: Legacy of Monsters rises precisely because of the well-founded approach to the characters and the strength of the cast. That all starts with the most tantalizing bit of casting in the show: father-son duo Kurt Russell and Wyatt Russell both play the same character, army officer Lee Shaw.

With a story spread across two very different eras (the 1950s and the 2010s) it would be easy for Monarch feel dislocated. Instead, it all feels seamlessly connected, thanks in large part to the Russells’ performances, and all tied together by their combined portrayal of Shaw.

“It has an integrity, right?” director Matt Shakman told Polygon. “You start to believe this is the same character. It allowed us to do it in a way that I thought was more compelling.”

Casting the Russells was a dream come true. Director Matt Shakman and showrunners Chris Black and Matt Fraction all told Polygon that they were big fans of both actors, and hoped they could pull off a casting coup by getting both on their show. They had some things going for them: The father-son duo wanted to work together (but they weren’t interested in the father-son roles they were being offered) and saw the opportunity to both play the same role as an exciting challenge. Oh, and Kurt Russell is a big fan of Godzilla. That helped.

The pair took the opportunity and ran with it, creating the character together from top to bottom. Both Russells were involved in “all the conversations” about clothes, hair and makeup, Shakman says, to maintain the character’s consistency across eras. And while one was filming, the other made notes for his own performance.

“Kurt was hanging out on set and watching Wyatt do scenes and said, Oh, okay, I could do that. And then Wyatt would watch Kurt do scenes,” Shakman says. “They were able to create the character together, which was special, and bring together what they are good at.”

“They did scenes together,” Fraction says. “It was really cool to see how they built the character as actors, just like we built the character as writers.”

Although the Russells have a lot in common, they are very different actors. Kurt Russell has made his mark in genre cinema and excels as heroes in difficult situations with rough edges (The thing, Escape from New York). Wyatt Russell, whose star is still rising, is a former professional ice hockey player who has leaned towards a more “sensitive idiot” character type (Lodge 49, Sprongstraat 22) or even morally sinister roles (Under the banner of heaven, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier).

“Wyatt had grown up watching his father’s movies,” Shakman says. “So he knew the kind of performances his father did that didn’t look like his. He’s a different kind of actor; he’s not the kind of man you’d call (Escape from New York‘s) Snake Plissken. And Kurt wouldn’t be the kind of guy who would play some of the things that Wyatt plays. But they were able to come together and take bits and pieces of each other’s approaches and build one character, which was a lot of fun.

“There were moments where (Wyatt) was kind of spinning his head or something,” Black says. ‘And you would say: is he doing that on purpose? Or is it in the DNA?”

Image: Apple TV Plus

Shaw plays a crucial role in the series as the connective tissue between the two eras of the show, as well as the catalyst for many of the show’s biggest plot points. And finding actors who knew each other so well that they could reliably portray the two versions of Shaw as the same man at different times was perfect.

“Also, when we were writing the scripts, in the past it was Lee and in the present it was Shaw,” says Fraction. “Ultimately, over the course of the season, we’ve seen how Lee became Shaw, and we see Shaw being able to reconnect with who he was when he was Lee. There are moments where you can get a whiff of it: Wyatt doing a little bit of his father, acting bigger than Lee normally works. It’s like Lee is becoming this character.”

And ultimately it’s that character work that separates Monarch from his recent American Godzilla colleagues.

“Television is about a weekly appointment with characters you love and root for,” says Shakman. “It’s essentially a different recipe, and it requires building some characters that you can fall in love with and root for.”

And of course, it helps when Kurt Russell can lend his charm to a character – and his son Wyatt can work with his father to make that character feel like a unique voice.

“At one point Kurt said, ‘Yes, you write very well for me, you really have my voice,’” says Fraction. “We say, ‘Yeah, Kurt, we’ve been watching your movies forever, you’re in my head, man.'”

“Since you were the computer that wore tennis shoes,” says Black.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters premiered on Apple TV Plus on November 17, with new episodes every Friday.