‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ star Ren Watabe on his ‘very surprising and very unexpected’ first gig [Exclusive Video Interview]
When “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” star Ren Watabe walked onto the show’s Vancouver set for the first time, he was already well aware of the parallels between himself and his character Kentaro. “This was my first gig. So it was very surprising and very unexpected,” Watabe tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. “Similar to Kentaro, I was very reluctant at first because I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. But I was curious about a lot of things and I just hoped to be a part of it. I wanted to give myself a shot.”
Created by Chris Black and Matt Fraction, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” is the first television expansion of the blockbuster MonsterVerse franchise of films that includes 2014’s “Godzilla,” 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island,” and the recent hit “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” The series, which debuted on Apple TV+ last year, is set in dual timelines – with part of the series taking place in the aftermath of the first Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism (MUTO) attack as depicted in “Godzilla” and then another section detailing the origins of the group Monarch in the 1950s. Watabe stars as Kentaro, the grandson of Monarch co-founders Keiko and Bill Randa (played on “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” by Mari Yamamoto and Anders Holm, respectively; John Goodman, who cameos on “Monarch,” played an older version of Bill in “Kong: Skull Island”). Throughout the show, Kentaro is unwittingly drawn into the world of Monarch and must contend with surprising revelations about his absent father, Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira).
“With any scenes with family involved I tried to use myself more than anything, because I’ve had a similar situation with my own family,” Watabe says about the onscreen relationship. “I was raised by my mother alone, so I know what that feels like. I know what that’s all about. So I like to think I portrayed it as real as possible.”
Throughout Kentaro’s journey, he’s guided by Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) an Army veteran who’s one of the only people left alive who interacted with Keiko and Bill. The character serves as a leader of sorts for Kentaro and his half-sister Cate (Anna Sawai), and Watabe says Russell was similarly important to his development as an actor – particularly in terms of the show’s massive visual effects setpieces.
“I watched Kurt and went with it. That’s all I can say because he’s obviously dealt with the nature of science fiction in his past roles,” Watabe says. “So I just looked at him to see, okay, so he’s doing this. It was a lot of going with the flow.”
Watabe says Russell was the professional most might expect on set, but “what shocked me the most is that he’s just a really good guy.” He adds, “Kurt was super considerate, very human. So it was it was like, a huge pleasure working with him. Also, his engagement and enthusiasm to the whole series and towards work is something special to me. He was the most excited and he was the most engaged.”
Apple recently renewed “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” for a second season – good news for fans since Season 1 on a cliffhanger that springs the action forward to 2017 in the MonsterVerse timeline.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Watabe says when asked about Season 2. “But I’m as excited as you are to see where everything goes.”
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