How the Godzilla TV Show Monarch Convinced Kurt Russell and His Son Wyatt to Work Together Again
Surprisingly, it took a bit of work to find a project big enough for the father and son acting team of Kurt and Wyatt Russell to share the screen.
Kong: Skull Island. No, the most important movie for the new show from Apple TV+ is Soldier. Yes, Soldier, the 1998 sci-flick directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.
Because in Soldier, Godzilla. The younger Russell plays Shaw in the 1950s, connecting the series to the golden age of Kaiju cinema.
Series developer Matt Fraction, best known for his comic book work on series such as Hawkeye and The Immortal Iron Fist, knows how lucky he is to get the Russells together on Monarch. “My recollection is that they had been offered father/son parts a lot, and that hadn’t interested them,” Fraction recently told Den of Geek. “But the idea of the two of them as actors working to build the same character across the span of time spoke to them as actors. It was a challenge.”
Although Wyatt has been appearing on screen since popping up as a baby on 1987’s Overboard, alongside his father Kurt and mother Goldie Hawn, his stock has risen dramatically in recent years. Wyatt has earned acclaim for performances in the cult series Lodge 49, the World War II horror film Overlord, and the MCU show Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In fact, Kurt brought some of that experience to the Monarch set. “He would regale us with stories about working with these iconic directors like Tarantino, like Carpenter,” recalls executive producer Andy Goddard, but he would also carry the weight of those performances. “I just think he brings that with him, and it complemented the storytelling. It was the sort of the seesaw balance between what Kurt brought to the show from all his iconic roles, allied together with this young, vibrant and exciting cast.”
That connection gives weight to both Russells’ portrayal of Shaw, with Wyatt bringing the energy and Kurt bringing the weight of the past.
In particular, Kurt brought echoes of perhaps his greatest role, R.J. McReady, the doomed helicopter pilot from The Thing. “One chapter of the odyssey our characters go on is on an ice glacier,” Goddard points out. “So there were vapor trails of John Carpenter’s The Thing in the air as we were doing it.” As Goddard and Fraction explained the point of the glacier episode to Russell, the actor said, “Oh, yeah, yeah, go to go to the middle of the glacier and wait for the science guys to figure it out? I’ve done that before! It doesn’t work out too well.”
“Big, big McCready energy,” quips Goddard, pointing out the kind of vibes that no one but Wyatt can match.