Kurt Russell Admits That Watching Son Wyatt in ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Inspired Him to up His Game!

We all know that Kurt Russell is a true acting legend. The legendary actor made a name for himself as Dexter Riley in films such as The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975), and later continued the success by starring in John Carpenter’s films as hero-turned-robber Snake Plissken in Escape from New York (1981), its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996), the horror film The Thing (1982), and the kung-fu comedy action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986). And while this is just a fraction of Russell’s amazing roles, it is a good indication of how big of a star he was in the 1970s and 1980s.

But, another member of his family, his son Wyatt Russell, is also becoming a popular acting name since his appearance as John Walker / U.S. Agent in the The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) series. Kurt and Wyatt are physically similar, and while the two of them have turned down co-starring roles until recently, they are not just co-starring in the popular Monarch: Legacy of Monsters series, they are also playing the same character.

Kurt Russell recently sat down for an interview with Deadline, in which he explained that watching his son play a younger version of his own character, Lee Shaw, made him realize what a good job his son was doing, which meant that he had to up his own game as well. Here is what he said:

“We were doing two different crews and I said, ‘I’m going to go check out and see Wyatt’s group was doing.’ It was fascinating for me because for the first time, this is my son – I’d known him all my life. He knew me his life, I was an actor. I’d watched him before and I’d been on sets of his and stuff, but in an appreciative sort of way. Now I was suddenly watching this character be laid down that I was going to be the other half of much later in life. And it was really fascinating.

I found myself watching this actor and I remember thinking, ‘F*ck, man – this guy’s good. I better get my game going here, because this can’t fall down when it gets to my part of it.”

Source: Deadline

He also commented on how special the situation was, as cinema history doesn’t really remember too many situations when father and son, both well-known names in the industry, shared the screen by playing the same actor. Here is what Kurt said:

“When we were doing publicity of the show, we found out from a bunch of people who’d looked it up: it’s never been done before. There’s never a known actor there, a father and son, both of them being known, the same role. Wyatt and I did that in Soldier: he played the character young when he was 12, when the character of Todd was 12, and then I played him later on in life. So we’ve actually done it twice.”

Source: Deadline

The talk was a part of Deadline’s Contenders Television panel, which was also attended by VFX supervisor Sean Conrad and composer Leopold Ross, but not Wyatt; Kurt confirmed – and this is a scoop for MCU fans – that Wyatt couldn’t make it because he is filming the upcoming Thunderbolts* movie, but he did speak about how both of them worked together to develop the character of Lee Shaw for the series:

“When we came on, it was just a casting idea: Lee Shaw was in the maybe three or four shows that were being talked about at the time, was really a fifth or sixth character. So we had to come up with a reason why Wyatt and I were going to do the show.

We thought it would be an interesting challenge to maybe do something that would help explain or be very indicative to the audience about what it was we were trying to do with Monarch. Monarch is a what if it’s unlike the movie. It’s a what if this was really happening, I don’t think we’d be too happy about it. We’d be very afraid… This is a bad thing that’s happening. And Monarch is about the people who are dealing with it. And within that there are some monsters too: there are human monsters.

It was really the only place where Wyatt and I got to work together, because that was where we worked on what it was that that Lee Shaw was going to be. It was a lot of fun.”

Source: Deadline

This is certainly nice, to see father and son collaborate in such a way, and since they did a unique thing twice, it is also part of cinema history.

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