Wyatt and Kurt Russell reveal how they help the Monsterverse avoid AI

The show avoided digital de-aging by casting father and son: 'AI has changed everything, but you can’t create an emotional element like that'

Science fiction TV shows that take place across an extended time period, like For All Mankind or Fallout, often rely on extensive makeup or digital de-aging techniques to let a single actor play the same role throughout the series. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which begins its second season on Apple TV on Feb. 27, instead uses its decades-spanning story to build on its narrative themes by casting Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell to play army officer Lee Shaw in different eras.

“AI has changed everything, but you can’t create an emotional element like that,” Wyatt Russell told Polygon via Zoom. “That’s very human and goes to the show’s core, which is a story about human beings and our relationships, and how those affect the future, and how they affect one another in the present.”

In Monarch’s 1950s sequences, Lee Shaw (Wyatt) protects Monarch’s founders as they travel the world tracking the enormous monsters dubbed Titans. In the ’60s, Shaw travels to Axis Mundi, a realm beneath the earth where time moves much more slowly. In the show’s present day of 2017, Col. Lee Shaw (Kurt) works to help a new generation study and protect the world from monsters, even if he doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with Monarch’s leadership.

Wyatt said mirroring his father’s mannerisms comes naturally to him, but the show’s makeup and wardrobe departments also work hard to make the two men look more like each other.

“I’ve been accused of being my father by my own family members a lot,” Wyatt said. “Actually, when you put us next to each other, you do see the differences more than the similarities.”

The biggest physical difference is their builds – Wyatt is 6’1” and played NCAA Division 1 hockey while at the University of Alabama in Huntsville; his father is 5’9” and played baseball. “A few vertebrae are removed,” Wyatt jokes. But the different attitudes they bring to their performances is even more noticeable.

“The older version of Lee, in a really fun way, is a lot more unhinged than the younger version,” Wyatt said. “Seeing somebody go through the experiences he’s been through, you see that would make you feel a different way as an older person.”

A spin-off of Monarch begins filming this spring, which will follow Wyatt’s version of Shaw as he tracks Titans during the Cold War. Kurt said he’s looking forward to learning more about his character, including what creatures he’s had to run from.

“The monsters are just so well done,” he told Polygon. “They’re so fantastic, and they’re really horrible. They’re very different from the Disneyfication of certain animals, and they’re not dinosaurs. This is something we don’t understand.”

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Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 premieres on Apple TV on Feb. 27. Future episodes will release Fridays through May 1.