Monarch: Legacy of Monsters brings Titans to the small screen while deepening the human ties between the MonsterVerse’s big-budget kaiju films. Created by Chris Black and written by Black and Matt Fraction, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters explores the origins of the franchise’s shadowy Monarch organization as well as the ways in which it has morphed and changed over time. The series takes places across two timelines, with one primarily set in the 1950s, and the other picking up shortly after the events of 2014’s Godzilla.
The 2015 timeline of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters may focus primarily on the grandchildren of Skull Island‘s Bill Randa and Dr. Keiko Miura, but the best look at that timeline’s version of Monarch comes from Joe Tippett’s Tim and Elisa Lasowski’s Duvall. Both characters work for the organization but have an anti-establishment flair that causes them to drive many of the series’ biggest moments. The dynamic between Tim and Duvall is also a highlight, with Tippett’s well-intentioned but less than smooth character acting as a charming counterpoint to Duvall’s seriousness.
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Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a generation-spanning exploration of the MonsterVerse, but will there be a season 2?
Screen Rant interviewed Joe Tippett and Elisa Lasowski about the relationship between their characters, the good and bad sides of Monarch, and more.
Joe Tippett & Elisa Lasoswki On Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters
Screen Rant: Joe, one of my favorite small moments of this whole show is when Tim is walking toward a house and the music is swelling and being very dramatic, and then you kind of stumble up a curb. It’s just perfect. Whether it’s that moment or just other small mannerisms of Tim, how much are you coming up with on the fly, and how much is on the page?
Joe Tippett: I mean, I think I might have just done that to make Hiromi (Kamata, the director) laugh, and they loved it. Thre’s much more on the page than I could ever come up with. I’m not that creative.
Elisa Lasowski: That’s not true. Sorry, I have to interrupt you and step in. It’s absolutely not true. You’re incredibly creative. Joe comes up with these different things on different takes all the time. He continuously tries to find different options [for] the scene.
Joe Tippett: She gets really mad about that. She’s like, “Just stick to one thing.”
Elisa Lasowski: Not true! [Laughs]
Joe Tippett: I think it’s just a testament to the people that we’re working with. I think people were open to ideas and, certainly in the process of a show like this, the characters are revealed to you the more episodes you do, [and] the more time you spend with them. But that’s kind of Tim in a nutshell to me: the, like, “I’ve got this,” and then it ends like that. I’m reticent to talk too much about it, because I don’t think it’s happened yet, and I don’t want to give anything away.
Elisa, there’s this great moment in episode four where Tim is kind of yelling at Monarch on a video call and you just kind of rein him in and keep him on focus. Can you talk about how Duvall sees him and the world in general? Because she does seem like a much more focused and driven character.
Elisa Lasowski: I mean, I think they’re both very driven; it’s just that they have different skill sets. I think what Duvall sees in Tim is this passion, this knowledge that he has about the subjects he’s talking about [with] Monarch. I think there’s something in how he thinks about things that she finds really interesting.
We were talking about this earlier, but there’s a scene in episode three where they’re faced with Verdugo and she stands up for Tim. Verdugo is their boss, and yet, they’re like, “No, we have our own way of doing things.” It’s quite anti-establishment in some ways; they each have their own approach, and I think they believe in each other. She sees him in this moment, getting lost with apologizing for who he is, or whatever, and she’s like, “What is your point? Because you have one. Just go for it.” She gives him that confidence because she believes in what he has to say.
Joe, something I love about the show is that you get to see the good and the bad side of Monarch, and the hopes and the reality at the same time. What do you think Tim would say are the pros and cons of the organization?
Joe Tippett: Tim is old-school. I think he would have posters of young Bill Randa and Keiko on his wall and stuff like that; he looks up to those guys, and their mission statement, that little shoestring organization that they started, is what he wanted to go to work for. I think what has happened is that the organization has expanded and gotten so big, and it’s become this huge bureaucracy, [and] they have lost sight of what it is that they were there to do. I think Monarch probably, at this point, spends more time trying to keep Monarch a secret than [trying to] prevent these Titan events.
I think Verdugo is a great example. As Elisa’s saying, we’re kind of anti-establishment and she’s corporate, but she has bosses to answer to and stuff like that. It’s just this massive chain of like, “But we have resources; we can help people,” and I think that it’s become more important to the organization to protect itself. I think that’s something that he would say is bad, but that they have the ability to help people, I think, is quite good.
Elisa, so many characters in this live in a really cool gray area where they have their convictions, but it’s hard to know who’s right and wrong. What do you think is the driving force behind Duvall, and do you relate to it as an actor reading the script?
Elisa Lasowski: It’s true, like you say, that they operate in a gray zone. They all operate in this world in which they want to survive, and they all have their own ways of figuring out how to do that and what they think would be best. A bit like Godzilla, they’re like, “Are they good? Are they bad?” You don’t know. They have this function in the universe which is ambiguous, sometimes.
You also asked me how I would relate to her. I relate to her in that she is her own agent, in some ways. She doesn’t like to follow the rules too much; I would certainly say that applies to myself. She’s not intimidated by bureaucracy. She’s in this because she has deep reasons for caring about the cause, and whatever is the means to an end. There’s a passion in there that is not rule-based.
There are so many Titans in this universe. Are there any that both of you would be excited to see or do a scene with in some future projects?
Joe Tippett: I mean, all of them, because that just means that there are more adventures and more stories. I don’t mean to cop out, but all of them. The amount of fun that we got to have even with the sort of limited 10 episodes that we have thus far… it’s so much fun, particularly to see what it is that we were looking at in the end; to see the finished product is so satisfying. So, all of them, because they all do different things. And, to that extent, we’re going to get put in all kinds of crazy scenarios, and I’m like, “I’ll do that.”
Elisa Lasowski: Yeah, I mean, Godzilla obviously is one that is just so eventful that there’s no way you can’t be excited about that. But then also, new monsters… we won’t say too much.
About Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters
Following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco and the shocking revelation that monsters are real, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” tracks two siblings following in their father’s footsteps to uncover their family’s connection to the secretive organization known as Monarch.
Check out our other Monarch: Legacy of Monsters interviews:
- Matt Shakman
- Sean Konrad
- Tory Tunnell
- Matt Fraction & Chris Black
- Mari Yamamoto & Anders Holm
- Ren Watabe, Anna Sawai & Kiersey Clemons
- Leopold Ross
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
- Cast:
- Array
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- Rating:
- Not Yet Rated
- Seasons:
- 1
- Writers:
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- Streaming Service(s):
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- Franchise(s):
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