Kurt and Wyatt Russell On Playing The Same Character In Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters: It Is “An Interesting Opportunity” To Work Together

Monarch isn’t the first time Kurt and Wyatt shared a role. They were in Paul WS Anderson’s 1998 film Soldier. The elder Russell played the titular genetically-modified warrior while the preteen Wyatt was cast as the grunt’s younger version in the early training montage.

Kurt and Wyatt have long resisted the novelty of playing father and son together, but the chance to play the same role was too good to pass up.

“It was the idea that came from Ronna Cress, the casting director of Monarch, and [showrunners] Matt Fraction and Chris Black,” said Wyatt. “They came up with the great casting idea, But we had never really actively looked for a project to work on together.”

If you think about it, it was a great idea. In an alternate world, the powers of be could’ve just simply hired one actor for the Shaw part: either de-age Kurt (a la Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) or age-up Wyatt (like what Leonard DiCaprio went through in J Edgar).

“[Monarch] is an interesting opportunity [to work together again] and maybe we’ll never get this opportunity again,” the Escape from New York legend added. “So, we kind of really wanted to go in hard and try to make it work because we didn’t want to do something that we felt wasn’t going to be at least as good or better than the idea itself.”

Since they were both playing Lee, the Russells needed to be on the same page in developing the character’s evolution over the span of his lifetime. While neither of them studied each other’s earlier works (“nothing specific” said Kurt), they did agree that the one trait Lee possesses is his resourcefulness.

“He is a very tactile or MacGyver-like person,” Kurt previously explained in the production notes. “Guys in the military have a job to do and Shaw does it because that’s what he’s about. He’s one of the founders of Monarch which, over the years, has changed and when we find him in 2015, he’s not pleased at what the organisation has become.”

In Monarch, Shaw appears fearless when confronting all sorts monsters. What kind of monsters are Kurt and Wyatt afraid of?  

“When it comes to monsters, we’re afraid of not making a good show,” said Kurt. “You know, we wanna make a good show.”

“I don’t think we’re critical of the work necessarily after it’s done,” Wyatt continued. “But during the process [of making it], we’re both very critical. After it’s done, you just going to kind of let it go, and cross your fingers in a way.”

Next on Kurt’s slate is The Rivals of Amziah King, a crime thriller he stars alongside Matthew McConaughey, while Wyatt is in the Blumhouse horror Night Swim, coming out on Feb 22.