How Kurt and Wyatt Russell came to play the same character in Godzilla-inspired 'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters'
"It was a shared creative project unlike any other father-son acting duo," says director Matt Shakman.
Who needs digital de-aging when you already have your own younger lookalike? That's the story of how Monarch: Legacy of Monsters became a family affair for Kurt and Wyatt Russell. Father and son play the same character at different ages in the eight-episode Apple TV+ series, which takes place in the same Monsterverse populated by big-screen hits like 2014's Godzilla, 2017's Kong: Skull Island and 2021's Godzilla vs. Kong.
In the present day, Kurt plays retired Army officer Lee Shaw, who had a close encounter of the kaiju kind as a younger man back in the 1950s... back when he was the spitting image of Wyatt. While the time-shifting, single-character approach means the Russells don't share any scenes together, Matt Shakman — who directed Monarch's first two episodes — says that the "very, very close" duo were frequently on set together anyway.
"Kurt was around a lot, and very keen to see what Wyatt was doing," the WandaVision and Games of Thrones helmer says. "He wanted to see what Wyatt was establishing, so he could put that into his own performance. Eagle-eyed viewers will definitely see that."
"They're very different actors," Shakman adds. "They have different approaches to performing, so this was an amalgam of their approaches. They liked the idea of having the opportunity to create the same character. It was a shared creative project unlike any other father-son acting duo, and they enjoyed the challenge."
Having both Russells present on set speaks to the way the concept of "legacy" informs the series. In the present day timeline, Shaw comes to the aid of two half-siblings — Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe) — who have only just discovered that they share the same absent father... and that Dad is connected to Monarch, the scientific organization at the center of the Monsterverse.
"I was surprised to discover that this show about Godzilla was really about the generations of this one family, and how they were connected to this organization," Shakman notes of how Monarch creators Chris Black and Matt Fraction pitched the series to him. "It's a brilliant way to do a show about monsters, but telling it from a human point of view."
But don't worry, Godzilla fans — there are still plenty of giant lizard sightings. And other giant monsters, many of which are drawn from the vast archives at Toho, the Japanese studio behind so many of the kaiju we all know and love.
"We wanted to use some great monsters from their existing catalogue, but also create our own," Shakman says. "Toho was very receptive; they were looking at scripts and would give notes during the design process. Making monsters is fun! You get to take all these weird-looking bugs and creatures and imagine what they would be like if they were 400-feet tall."
Unlike Toho's vintage Godzilla movies, though, none of Monarch's kaiju is played by guys in suits like Haruo Nakajima, the first actor to don a rubber Godzilla costume in the 1954 original. (Nakajima died in 2017.) Instead, Shakman and the production team relied on computer effects to bring those 400-feet weird-looking bugs to life onscreen.
"I love a man in a suit," the director confesses. "When we were touring Toho, there were pictures of Godzilla with his head off, standing there amid a miniature Tokyo and those were wonderful. But we have a different level of expectation these days, and that wouldn't work in terms of bringing Godzilla to life.
"But whenever we could do something practical, we did," Shakman adds. "I'm a big fan of that from working on Game of Thrones. One of the things we did on that was putting layers of reality in the way before we got to something that was CGI. If you have a row of Dothraki charging at you and tons of fire, and then a [CGI] dragon emerges from the smoke behind them, it all feels more believable.
"But hey," he says with a smile, "if you can show me a guy in a really awesome suit that works as well as our CG Godzilla, I'm all for it!" Sounds like a challenge for Jim Henson's Creature Workshop.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is streaming now on Apple TV+.
