Kurt and Wyatt Russell Talk ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Season 2 Return, Upcoming Spinoff and the Complicated Legacy of ‘Tombstone’

[This story contains mild spoilers from the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season two premiere, “Cause and Effect.”]

There were a lot of questions at the end of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season one. Would the Monsterverse spinoff series be renewed? If so, would Kurt and Wyatt Russell’s shared portrayal of former U.S. Army Colonel Lee Shaw still be a part of the equation? The renewal answer arrived three months after season one wrapped in January 2024, but the status of the father-son Russell duo remained a mystery for well over a year and a half.

In the season one finale, Kurt’s 91-year-old version of the Monarch co-founder appeared to fall to his death in Axis Mundi, the gateway realm between Earth and the Titan-inhabited Hollow Earth. He sacrificed himself in an effort to rescue his star-crossed lover and fellow Monarch originator, Keiko Randa (Mari Yamamoto). She’d been stuck in the “world between worlds” for nearly 60 years, but due to time dilation, it was less than two months’ time from her perspective. 

In the penultimate episode’s 1962 timeline, Wyatt’s 38-year-old Lee Shaw embarked on what quickly became a failed reconnaissance mission to Axis Mundi. The operation had a broader purpose, but it’s implied that he was still holding out hope to find Keiko. A disoriented Lee later reemerged in 1982, having lost 20 years during his week-long stint down below. (This revelation explains why Kurt’s iteration is so youthful looking at 91.) 

Now considered a liability, Monarch placed Shaw on house arrest in an assisted living facility, keeping him highly medicated and largely inactive. And within the blink of an eye, the show jumped from Wyatt’s Shaw in 1982 to Kurt’s Shaw in 2014, a year before the Randa grandchildren, Cate (Anna Sawai) and Kentaro (Ren Watabe), would seek his help in season one’s second episode. This handoff between the two Russells could have easily functioned as the last glimpse of Wyatt’s Lee.

Answers about the collective fate of Lee Shaw finally came in November 2025, as the real-life father and son were confirmed to return for season two. According to Kurt, their second go-round was never guaranteed. All the parties involved agreed to reevaluate after one year.

“It was like a one-year thing. See what you do, see how you feel, see how they feel, see what the audience feels — mainly, see how the audience feels,” Russell tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It felt a little bit like what we’re used to when doing a movie. You do the movie, and there it is. You’re hoping for business and that people have a good time with it.”

Wyatt adds: “We really weren’t planning on it. We didn’t go, ‘Oh yeah, we’re coming back.’ It was a nice surprise.”

Story-wise, bringing the older Lee Shaw back into the fold would prove to be a double-edged sword. In the season two premiere’s 2017 narrative, Cate led the charge to recover Lee, and while her undertaking was successful, it accidentally unleashed a tentacled Titan known as Titan X and its pesky foot soldiers regarded as Scarabs. In the parallel 1957 story, the show reintroduces Wyatt’s Lee alongside Monarch partners Keiko and Bill Randa (Anders Holm) during their own run-in with the “Great God of the Sea.”

Looking forward, the future is already much clearer than it was following season one. Wyatt is confirmed to be starring in a spinoff series from Monarch executive producer Joby Harold. Reportedly set in 1984, Shaw presumably gets a reprieve from his medicated confinement to go on a top-secret mission behind enemy lines. He’s tasked with stopping the Soviet Union from releasing a Titan that could obliterate the United States and decide the Cold War in the Soviets’ favor. 

“We are shooting it this summer, and I’ve read the scripts. They’re very well written. I’m more excited to start working on this than I have been about anything in a long time,” Wyatt shares. “The genre that the Lee Shaw show will live in is totally separate from the genre that Monarch lives in. By early on in the show, people are going to be like, ‘This is wild. This is so different from what I thought I was going to be watching — in the best way.’”

Kurt, who next stars in the Paramount+ neo-Western The Madison, is also looking back on the complicated legacy of his 1993 Western, Tombstone. He’s well aware of how beloved his Wyatt Earp-led tale is to generations of people (including this writer), but being so close to it, he still can’t shake the potential that Kevin Jarre’s original screenplay had. In the past, he’s compared the script’s upside to that of The Godfather, as has his co-star Stephen Lang. But due to a director change mid-production and subsequent budgetary problems that forced Russell to shed 22 pages of that vaunted screenplay, Tombstone will forever be his “one that got away.”

“I’ll never make peace with that. [Tombstone] could have been way better. It’s considered one of the great Westerns, right? It could have been considered one of the great movies,” Kurt states. “The impact of Tombstone is very strong, and that’s nice. That’s great. But could it have been a lot better? Yes.”

Below, during a conversation with THR, the Russells also discuss their approach to playing the same character a half century apart, as well as whether Wyatt is truly named after Wyatt Earp.

***

Wyatt, have you and Bill Pullman figured out what beer you’re going to sell at next year’s Super Bowl? It’s only fair after Kurt’s commercial with Lewis Pullman.

KURT RUSSELL You can sell Lake Hour! [Writer’s Note: Wyatt is co-owner of the canned cocktail company.]

WYATT RUSSELL Yeah, it’s either going to be a Lake Hour commercial or a sleeping pill. We haven’t decided yet. It’s going to be something relaxing and subdued.

At the end of Monarch season one, I assumed you guys were done with the show. Kurt, your Lee Shaw seemingly met his end, and Wyatt, I thought your Lee was going to be eating JELL-O at that retirement home for the next 33 years. Were you guys always slated to come back? 

KURT RUSSELL No.

WYATT RUSSELL No. They probably had an idea of what they would like to do, but until you get a season two order and see how people respond to number one, you just don’t know. So you do everything like it’s the last time you’re going to do it. Then, hopefully, they come back and say they want to do another one. So that was sort of the way it was. We really weren’t planning on it. We didn’t go, “Oh yeah, we’re coming back.” It was a nice surprise. 

KURT RUSSELL It was like a one-year thing. See what you do, see how you feel, see how they feel, see what the audience feels — mainly, see how the audience feels. And then take a look at if it’s something that Apple and Legendary are interested in doing again. It felt a little bit like what we’re used to when doing a movie. You do the movie, and there it is. You’re hoping for business and that people have a good time with it. 

Kurt, I commented to Wyatt a couple years ago about how you’ve aged really well, but 90-something Lee Shaw has aged even better. And he gave me a very nervous laugh at the time because none of us knew yet that Lee lost 20 years from spending one week in Axis Mundi. Time dilation is not in the Monsterverse movies, so did the writers initially create it in order to accommodate your casting?

KURT RUSSELL I’m assuming they did it for the show itself, not for our casting. That was always what they were going to do with the character and Mari’s [Yamamoto] character. Time spins differently down there, and I think it spins differently from the actual science of it all, which is interesting in itself. So we were always talking about what that meant and how that would affect things. In the second season, Mari’s character [Keiko] is like Rip Van Winkle now that she’s come out of Axis Mundi [after 58 years in real-world time]. Being down there for a long time, it’s a bit of a mystery, and so we play with that mystery.

Did you guys ever sit down with Mari and gameplan ways to keep both eras of the Lee-Keiko relationship consistent?

WYATT RUSSELL No, we never really sat down, but we talked about it. Those elements are for Mari to take on and figure out for herself how she feels about them. Our [1950s] timeline is very different from the modern-day timeline, and since she’s the one who really connects the two timelines this year, that was her torch to bear this season. That was going to be [led by] her reactions, and on the day, if you feel differently, you’re going to have to adapt to it. 

KURT RUSSELL Having been in Axis Mundi, the only specific is that you apparently have no memory of it. That is a bit of a hard-and-fast rule. 

In creating this character together, you’ve probably studied each other’s acting more closely than ever before. Have you noticed any tendencies between yourselves that we might not recognize? 

KURT RUSSELL We’ve got a family of actors, but we don’t really study each other at all. We just see what they did. Everybody does their own thing, and what they want to do. Everybody has careers that are often in different worlds. The big thing for me was that I had a day off early on in the first season, and I decided to go down to Wyatt’s set to see what they were doing. It was just me going to see Wyatt and have a nice time. And after I’d had a real hour of enjoyment in watching how he worked, I realized, “God, we really work a lot alike. He asked the question of the director that I would be asking right now.” Then I left all of that. I realized that I was an actor watching another actor lay down a character that I was going to play older and later on in life. So I needed to pay attention to what he was doing because it was specific, and that turned out to be incredibly informative and very important for me to do. 

Lee Shaw’s father appears in the ‘50s timeline this season, and that character must’ve been quite a casting challenge considering everyone watching has the two of you in mind as frame of reference. Did the casting department ever ask for your input?

WYATT RUSSELL Yes. They were like, “Who do you think would be good casting?” I was like, “I worked with this actor named Bill Sage on a movie called We Are What We Are many years ago, and he would be a really good father figure.” You have to have somebody who has an innate intensity to them and a charm. You don’t want someone to come in and push and try to be like Kurt or like Wyatt. You want someone who’s going to come in and do it like they’re going to do it. So Bill has those qualities just in his eyes and the way he looks at you and responds to you. And I knew that those qualities were going to be there on set. It was really fun to see and work with Bill again. He gave me a great gift at the end of shooting that episode. Michael Parks, who we both worked with on We Are What We Are, had given him a shirt before he passed away. It’s just a very plain white shirt, but he said to Bill, “I’m going to give you this shirt. When the time is right, you’ll know who to pass this down to.” Bill then brought the shirt to Australia, and now I have the shirt. It was a great compliment, and it’s now a very cherished possession. Bill and I had a connection from a long time before, and so it was nice to bring that to the set.

KURT RUSSELL When we were talking about it, you had a number of people. You kept asking me, but I didn’t really have anybody in mind. So you kept whittling down these ideas that you had — people you’d worked with and people you’d seen — and you went to Bill fairly quickly. 

WYATT RUSSELL Yeah, Bill’s great. 

Wyatt, how substantial is the Lee Shaw spinoff talk? 

WYATT RUSSELL We are shooting it this summer, and I’ve read the scripts. They’re very well written. I’m more excited to start working on this than I have been about anything in a long time. The genre that the Lee Shaw show will live in is totally separate from the genre Monarch lives in, and it’s very different in a way that I think is really exciting. I think people will expect one thing when they watch it, and that expectation will be completely subverted. Early on in the show, people are going to be like, “This is wild. This is so different from what I thought I was going to be watching — in the best way.” Joby Harold is showrunning and writing, and he’s so inspired, as are the people we’ve gotten to work on the show so far. It is still early days in terms of pre-production, but I’m over-the-moon excited about it. Everybody is. It’s exciting to expand the Monsterverse, and hopefully, for the next 10 or 15 years or however long, people can get excited about this new wave of storytelling that will come out of the Monsterverse. It focuses on the humans, but the monsters are still a big part of it, so it’s really fun to be able to help create that.

The two of you have been able to bond in a whole new way through Monarch. It makes me think about what my father and I have bonded over the most. And without question, it’s Tombstone. 

KURT RUSSELL Oh, that’s cool!

We could literally quote the entire movie when my dad was younger. We even took a detour to Glenwood Springs after an Aspen trip to see the grave where Doc Holliday is not actually buried.

KURT RUSSELL (Laughs.) Right. [Writer’s Note: After walking half a mile in the snow to reach Linwood Cemetery, we were greeted with a sign informing us that Doc was not actually buried beneath his gravestone. The belief is that he’s somewhere on the property, but we later learned that his family is of the mind that he was transported back to his hometown of Griffin, Georgia.]

We’ve talked a few times about how we wish you could see the movie through our eyes, because you’ve previously said that you can’t help but remember what the movie could have been.

KURT RUSSELL That’s because of the screenplay. The movie is not as good as the screenplay.

Have you been able to make more peace with that in recent years?

KURT RUSSELL I’ll never make peace with that. It could have been way better. It’s considered one of the great Westerns, right? It could have been considered one of the great movies. It had a great cast, but it had fabulous writing. And for a lot of different reasons, the money got burned through, and the director thing didn’t work out. So we had to go about it differently, and we got what we made. The impact of Tombstone is very strong, and that’s nice. That’s great. But could it have been a lot better? Yes.

Wyatt, everybody assumes that you’re named after Mr. Kansas Law Dog, but I couldn’t find an actual quote confirming the Wyatt Earp homage. What’s the real story? 

WYATT RUSSELL No, the real story is that, weeks before I was born, I was going to be named Henry. And a friend of my dad’s had an uncle or something … 

KURT RUSSELL Well, I couldn’t remember the name I had in mind. Goldie [Hawn] also had a couple of names in mind. But I couldn’t remember the name I had in mind until I ran into [my friend] Sam. I said, “We’re probably going to name him Henry. We really like Henry.” And he said, “I’ve got some great family names.” And one of them was Wyatt. I was like, “That’s the name!” 

WYATT RUSSELL There was no Google name database to be like, “What was that W name I forgot?” 

KURT RUSSELL Yeah, I just forgot it. I literally wrote it down then. I didn’t want to forget it again.

WYATT RUSSELL But there was no connection to Wyatt Earp, right? 

KURT RUSSELL The funny part is I was looking at the screenplay for Tombstone, and I left it open for a second to go out to the kitchen and get something to eat. Wyatt then came in a few minutes later and said, “Hey, Dad, there’s a script on your desk. I looked at it, and there’s a guy in there with my name.” 

KURT & WYATT RUSSELL (Laugh.)

KURT RUSSELL You were eight? 

WYATT RUSSELL Six or seven.

Do you guys have your own film that you’ve rewatched many times together?

WYATT RUSSELL My dad showed me Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when I was probably 13 or 14, and I just thought it was so cool. As a kid who went to Colorado a lot, that was a part of the lore. The geography was cowboys, and my dad is an adept rider. He understands horses, and so he brought that into our lives early. I wasn’t some great horseman, but it was around us. So Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid always had this allure that I thought was really magical and special, and the relationship between those two men was also magical and special. I could feel that as a 14 year old, and I just thought it was so cool. 

KURT RUSSELL You’ve also mentioned Network. 

WYATT RUSSELL Yeah, that was a big one. You showed me Network when I was probably 16 or 17, and that was an example of some of the best writing ever. We would watch TCM a lot. There was a period where you watched Turner Classic Movies all day.

KURT RUSSELL I discovered it when I was doing Hateful Eight. We were in Telluride when I discovered the channel, and I said, “Wait a minute, this channel is great.” So I got to see all these movies I’d never seen before. 

WYATT RUSSELL I’d come over, and he’d be watching Mutiny on the Bounty.

KURT RUSSELL I got a very late lesson in the motion picture world. I hadn’t seen any of these things. We didn’t watch television when we were kids. Our father was not big on that. And then, with movies, I was in the business, so I didn’t really go to the movies a lot. I just did the work. So it was fun to discover this channel and be able to say, “Hey, have you guys seen this channel? It’s got great old stuff on it.”

WYATT RUSSELL He won’t admit it due to humility or whatever, but he’s an encyclopedia of old movies. It was always cool — and is always cool — to watch movies with my dad because he’s a very excitable movie watcher. 

KURT RUSSELL Yeah, I like watching ‘em.

WYATT RUSSELL He’ll be like, “That’s Johnny Wilkinson. My dad did seven episodes of Bonanza with Johnny. Great actor. Watch what he does here.”

KURT RUSSELL (Laughs.)

WYATT RUSSELL Ben Johnson was another great actor that you pointed out to me. He’s a person I’ve watched. There were some great character actors that are great to look at today, more so than a lot of other things. I love picking things up from people in those different eras.

***
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season two is now streaming new episodes every Friday.