The new season of ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ will be available on February 27, and in this installment, the series delves deeper into the history of the Monarch organization, with a new titan threatening the protagonists (Titan X) and the links between different humans. The series is a spin-off of the MonsterVerse saga that began with ‘Godzilla’ in 2014. At eCartelera, with Anna Sawai, Joe Tippett, and Kiersey Clemons, who share many similarities in this global series: their struggle to understand and fight with and against monsters, as well as their differences in how to do so and who to leave behind in order to do so.
Anna Sawai, who plays Cate Randa, a schoolteacher from San Francisco who in the first season searches for her missing father—which leads her to discover his involvement with Monarch—says what it was like to immerse herself in her character’s dynamic: “For Cate, the important thing is that she has lost two years with her father, and that is time she will never get back. She feels jealous because she feels inferior to her siblings. It was very interesting to immerse myself in that dynamic.”
Joe Tippet’s character is Tim, an enthusiastic Monarch office worker who goes into the field to track down the organization’s lost documents. He tells us about the difficulties of maintaining vulnerable characters when the context of the series focuses on giant creatures and tons of action:
“They have a knack for introducing those moments because there are other series that are at their peak and suddenly start talking about their relationships. It’s like… Do you really want to talk about that now? In ‘Monarch,’ everything makes sense, and it doesn’t feel like you’re about to be crushed by a monster, but I want to talk to you about relationships. The overall dynamic of the series helps integrate those moments.”
The relationship between Sawai’s character and Kiersey Clemons as May Hewitt—a former Apex employee who flees to Japan after discovering that her company was using her code for nefarious purposes—is one of the driving forces of the series. The actress jokes about building that relationship: “We lie in bed and talk about life. It’s like we’re in high school.
I wanted us to get along because we were going to be working together a lot on the evolution of this friendship and what that means, to which Sawai adds: ”We’re always joking around, it’s great to have that trust to try things out on set.”
In a series with so many apocalyptic settings and filmed in different locations, we asked the actresses about the most spectacular thing they saw on set: “I really liked the day in the jungle. There were lots of stuntmen jumping through the air. It was a lot of fun,“ says Tippet, to which Clemons adds: ”It was crazy, there was a storm, there was a lot of mud.“ For Sawai, her favorite moment was in Thailand, where: ”Our stunt team was driving and rolling over. Without them, we wouldn’t have a series, it’s incredible.”
Anders Holm and Mari Yamamoto
Mari Yamamoto plays scientist Keiko, who debates her worldview between the scientific and mystical relationship with monsters: “Her academic fascination comes from a very personal place, she survived the war and the atomic bomb, she lost loved ones. When you lose everything and you’re looking for hope, you lean on the mystical much more. That tension between the two worlds is very beautiful.”
For his part, Anders plays Bill Randa, the cryptozoologist who becomes a researcher for Monarch—previously played by John Goodman. When asked if he is aware of his character’s fate in Kong: Skull Island, he said, “I can’t play him knowing that he’s going to die. Still, maybe subconsciously he knows he’s going to die. He lives for the adrenaline rush. For him, whatever happens, it will have been worth it.”
Finally, both also highlight their favorite day on set: “The indigenous village. They built a fishing village: with its pier, its houses, a square with fountains and bars. There was also a festival with hundreds of extras dancing. These are things that help you get into the action, because they’re really happening.” The second season of ‘The Legacy of Monsters’ premieres on Apple TV on February 27.
