Kurt Russell and Son Wyatt Reluctant to Collaborate on ‘Monarch’

Kurt and Wyatt Russell never talk about acting…like ever.

Despite being part of what many would consider an acting dynasty, they don’t talk about it. It’s a process they fully commit to and prepare for, but ultimately it’s instinct. Kurt compares it to his days as an athlete, but also to the family advice he has received.

“It’s something that’s in your head,” he tells Variety. “In my baseball days, you studied a pitcher and learned everything about him. As my father always said, understanding the situation and the count and the collection and what everyone is thinking and doing is all in your head. But when you step into the batter’s box, you’re just looking for something white.”

So it was new for the father-son duo to talk about acting when they signed on to share the role of Colonel Lee Shaw in Apple TV+’s ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’. It wasn’t the first time they took on roles where they played the same character in two stages of life. When Wyatt was 12, he briefly played the younger version of his father in the 1998 sci-fi thriller “Soldier.” But “Monarch” was a different beast.

The series is the first live-action television extension of the MonsterVerse franchise. But it shifts the focus from the monsters to the human element on the ground and through time, jumping from the 1950s to the aftermath of the franchise’s first installment, 2014’s “Godzilla.” shadowy agency Monarch, and how it scientifically tracked Titans before being distorted by government intervention. The younger version of Shaw is a US Army colonel who must guide Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) as she embarks on Monarch’s work. The elder Shaw is a man who takes into account the costs of that work.

But Kurt and Wyatt weren’t immediately sold on the idea.

“The initial reaction was that this looks like UFC fights between Godzilla and Kong, or whatever,” says Wyatt. “So no, it wasn’t an immediate ‘yes’.”

While they were intrigued by the show’s human priorities, they wanted Shaw to be stronger. “When we first read it, it was just an idea and Shaw was actually the fifth or sixth character in the series,” says Kurt. “This was a very interesting idea to play the same role, but the character had to be an integral part of the 10-hour story.”

For Wyatt, signing with Shaw was also about timing. Growing up with Kurt Russell as his father certainly cast a shadow, and standing on his own as an actor took time. So he had to be sure that this was the right time to test that theory.

“The stress came from wanting it to be good and thinking that my dad and I were actually going to do this thing together,” he says. “I’ve avoided it all my life because of comparisons. But now we are fourteen years later and I am doing well in my own life and in my career. This could work quite well. But it didn’t take away the stress of, “This has to be really damn good, otherwise what’s the point of doing it?”
Together they decided it was worth the leap. Then they had to talk about acting because, as Kurt puts it, they had to “connect the past and the present” for Shaw.

Kurt notes that as actors you have to create character boundaries while shooting a 10-episode show. “Yet you’re filming episode 3, and no one is really positive about what’s in episodes 8 and 9. So you don’t want to set up things that are going to be hard to follow character-wise. Wyatt and I also have different energies. Our job was to find the character so we could play this guy at different ages, and that was quite fun.

Wyatt adds, “I’m considered a little more laid back than my dad. I am considered thinner, I am languid and perhaps goofy. Then I had to tell myself that I couldn’t trust those instincts because that’s not what he would do.

It also mattered how the audience met Shaw. Kurt is not in the premiere, where Shaw gets into a bar fight. “If you meet someone in a story during a bar fight, it says a lot about them,” says Wyatt.
One of their biggest insights into the character comes in episode 6, when Shaw is at a party with Keiko and government officials, including Shaw’s boss, who sees the couple dancing.

“As he looks at him, he says, ‘The boy looks absolutely presidential,’” Kurt says. “Wyatt and I talked a lot about how he has that potential. So while you might encounter this man in a bar brawl, he’s someone who could be on the path to high-level politics.

Kurt also wrote a line for episode 2 that helped inform the character. As he flees decades of Monarch’s captivity, the elder Shaw takes a moment to regain his bearings behind the wheel before proudly declaring, “If it floats, flies or walks on four wheels, I’m your man.”

“That’s who he is,” Kurt says.

Of course, playing Shaw at different ages means Kurt and Wyatt never share the screen. All the work they did together took place before the cameras started rolling, and they filmed at different times around the world. So out of curiosity, Kurt would occasionally visit the set when Wyatt was filming to see what he was doing with Shaw.

“What was really funny was I looked at the scene, and it was 95 percent what I would expect and five percent what I never thought of,” Kurt says. “But what was more fun for me was watching it after and between takes. That was fascinating because we are almost identical in the way we work. I couldn’t believe that. I watched his concentration shift on and off and watched him think to himself about something and then watch what he did next. I would take what he thought and then see what he would do with it. It was pretty creepy in that regard. It was like looking into a mirror.”

“That’s osmotically learned,” Wyatt adds. “I saw that on sets growing up. It’s not necessarily genetics. My father is simply a good teacher.”

On the other hand, Wyatt was a little more hesitant to visit Kurt on set.

“I’ll be honest, for me, I needed a break,” he says, making them both laugh. ‘You want to talk about method acting. That’s my process. Sometimes you just need a break. And I’ve always known he’s really good. So once we get it going, it helps me not get bogged down in too many things that I have no control over.

The trust they placed in each other was rewarded. The series was well received by MonsterVerse fans and casual viewers alike, earning a Season 2 renewal. But despite all the work put into giving Shaw a timeless authenticity, “Monarch” is still missing something.

“I didn’t really get to work with my dad,” Wyatt says. “I would still like to do that. This makes the whistle wet. It would be so fun to be in a scene together.”