Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has more excitement ahead for its stars – both human and monster. Ahead of Friday’s all-new episode of the Apple TV+ show, which expands the world of the Monsterverse franchise beyond the beloved Godzilla and Kong characters, PopCulture.com got an exclusive look at what’s to come directly from the stars of the series.
Joe Tippett, who plays elusive Monarch agent Tim, teased a whole new world of action now that Tim and his partner Duvall (Elisa Lasowski) have come into contact with Cate (Anna Sawai), Kentaro (Ren Watabe), May (Kiersey Clemons), and Shaw (Kurt Russell). “I do think it’s like we’ve been through the first act of the season, and I think things are really going to start to pick up from here as new characters come into each other’s orbit a little bit,” Tippett teased, as Lasowski agreed, “I’d say yeah, the adventures intensify.”
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Working with Russell, who co-stars in the series alongside son Wyatt as an older version of Lee Shaw, was a delight for Tippett, who self-identifies as a “huge Kurt Russell fan.” He recalled, “I was just very tickled that my first line to [Shaw] was, ‘It’s an honor to meet you,’ [because] it was literally the first day that I met [Russell]. It’s the first thing I said to him.”
As part of the younger trio of actors accompanying Shaw on their mission to track down the truth about family secrets and Monarch’s secretive operations, Clemons said it was a treat to work alongside Russell. “I was looking forward to seeing how he works on a set, and he’s all of the good things, which is really great,” she told PopCulture. “I think that we did get lucky there, and I think he made us more excited about our own parts in the show and definitely gave me more confidence to speak up and really stand my ground on things that I was for sure about in regards to May and her story.”
Clemons continued, “I feel like he really made space for everyone to grow in that way. It was really helpful.” Sawai agreed, “I feel like as an actor, of course, I respect him, but getting to work with him, I respect him more as a human being because the way he treats the crew or treats us.” She added, “We’re just young actors that he could just treat differently, but he treated everyone equally.”
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters also called in another iconic actor, John Goodman, to briefly reprise his Kong: Skull Island role Bill Randa, whose younger counterpart is played by Anders Holm in the Apple TV+ series. “When I signed on, they gave me a heads-up, they’re like, ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to do a John Goodman thing,’” Holms told PopCulture of following in Goodman’s footsteps. “And I was like, ‘That’s great because I can’t do a John Goodman thing. He’s John Goodman. I’m me. I’m just going to try and do my thing and hopefully it works.’” He added, “But it’s very cool to tell people, ‘I’m playing young John Goodman.’ Everybody loses their mind.”
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters streams new episodes on Fridays through Jan. 12 on Apple TV+.
