Kurt and Wyatt Russell may be father and son IRL, but they portray the same person in Apple TV+’s new Godzilla series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
Playing the character of Lee Shaw at different ages was something the pair were excited to take on. “We’ve been offered things before that were, you know, father and son,” Wyatt told CBS Mornings in November 2023, adding, “This was actually a unique idea that was not something that we’ve been offered before, it was Godzilla and it was a big thing. And so, you want it to be as good as it can be.”
As the son of Kurt and actress Goldie Hawn, Wyatt said he didn’t feel any pressure to live up to his famous parents because “that’s not the way they raised us.” (Wyatt is the youngest of the couple’s blended family of kids, which includes Oliver Hudson, Kate Hudson and Boston Russell.)
He continued: “There’s no shoes to fill. That’s not part of what I care about or think about at all. It was only ever about doing what you can do best and go do that to the best of your ability.”
New episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters premiere Fridays on Apple TV+. Scroll down to read everything Kurt and Wyatt have said about working together:
Impressing Your Parent
“I was just really impressed with Wyatt’s demeanor,” Kurt said in a November 2023 interview with USA Today. “He’s just a really good communicator. Everybody feels comfortable and listened to and heard, and he very gently gets his point across. I knew that about him as a human being, but as a guy on a set? That’s a skill not a lot of people have at that level.”
He went on to note, “Other than that, nah. I’ve seen him. He’s really good.”
Shared Characteristics
“There are things that I know that are him, that he accentuates on camera that sometimes I’d think about trying to accentuate,” Wyatt told USA Today of capturing his father’s mannerisms. “But as much as sometimes I’d even catch myself wanting to, Lee in the ‘50s is not Lee in 2015. It was also trying to show a little bit of a difference in this character’s arc.”
Kurt Russell in “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” AppleTV+
‘Setting the Tone’
Kurt told USA Today that it was important for Wyatt to set the tone for their character so they wouldn’t “fall into the father/son thing.” He added: “[We had] a lot of fun talking about that and working on the character to make sure we were in the same movie, being the same person.”
The Student Becomes the Master
“I suddenly found myself on his set sometimes watching him, and here’s a guy I knew pretty well for most of my life — I thought I did, anyway — and I’m watching him now and suddenly, I’m no longer watching him as a person. I’m watching him as a character creator,” Kurt gushed about Wyatt’s performance during a joint interview on CBS Mornings.
Inside Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s Hollywood Love Story
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have been going strong for decades, proving that Hollywood romances can last. The duo met in 1966, but they didn’t start dating until they collaborated on 1983’s Swing Shift. Prior to their romance, Russell was married to Season Hubley from 1979 to 1983 while Hawn went through two of her own divorces. First, […]
Character Continuity
Playing the same character came with some challenges as Wyatt told Entertainment Tonight in November 2023 that he and his dad had to “be in cahoots” with one another. “It was more pre-production stuff because we weren’t gonna be on set together. So, we had to be, like, in lock step a little bit,” he said
Wyatt Russell in “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” AppleTV+
Wyatt shared similar comments during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that same month. “Part of what was really fun was getting to work on the pre-production stuff with my dad,” he told host Jimmy Kimmel. “It wasn’t like on the set, on the fly. Everything has to be architected and made sure that you’re playing the scenes the way that they need to be played so when they happen in the future, when things are informed for the future, you’re playing the same character.”
A ‘Wonderful Experience’
“I think we’re pretty professional,” Wyatt told Entertainment Tonight of working with Kurt, which he went on to call “the most wonderful experience.” He continued: “He’s the most giving actor, he listens to everything everybody has to say. I think in his mind, he’s probably more forceful than he is. I think off-camera, we’re both very similar where it’s like, ‘No, it has to be right.’ That’s the time where you can argue and that’s what [the] creative process is.”
Kurt, for his part, added that he viewed the show as “a wonderful opportunity to get to work with Wyatt.”
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