Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 1.
The full season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is out now on Apple TV+, culminating in a finale that merges storylines, introduces none other than King Kong, and sets up exciting possibilities for the future. The Randa family is finally reunited, though at a cost; barring some sort of miracle, Lee Shaw has perished in Axis Mundi. Still, the series brought that character’s arc to a satisfying conclusion, giving him one final opportunity to protect Dr. Keiko Miura after discovering her alive and well in the dimension of the Titans.
One of the biggest developments in the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters finale is Keiko’s escape from Axis Mundi to the show’s modern timeline. It’s an emotional series of events for Keiko, who not only reunites with Lee Shaw, but also meets her grandchildren and comes face-to-face with her son after being absent for most of his life. Each moment is more impactful than the last, and together they promise exciting opportunities for the Randa family in a potential Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2.
Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters’ Randa Family Tree Explained
The Randa family is at the center of the Monsterverse series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, with multiple members across different time periods.
Screen Rant interviewed Mari Yamamoto, who plays Keiko, about bridging the timelines, tearful reunions, and her hopes for the character’s future.
Mari Yamamoto Talks Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters Episode 10
Screen Rant: I was so excited to see Keiko return at the end of episode nine with the bow and arrow; it’s such a badass moment. I want a whole show of her surviving there. What was the most exciting part for you about being a part of that reveal?
Mari Yamamoto: I don’t know what was the most exciting; I think [just] being Keiko. She’s just trying to survive. You get so in the headspace of this character. She’s there for 57 days. She’s figured out weapons, she’s figured out the food chain, she’s partaking in the food chain, and she’s waiting for people to get her signal and come get her. It’s that moment of, “Is this it? Are they here?”
Shooting it was exciting because it was my first scene ever with Anna (Sawai). There was excitement around that, and I got to meet the whole 2015 cast. There was so much excitement around being with them on set and also getting to wield a weapon. For sure, that was really cool. In episode one when there was my so-to-speak death scene, I had a cool flare gun that I would get to shoot at the insects, but they ended up cutting that. I was like, “Oh, she’s weapon savvy and stuff, and we didn’t get to see that.” So now, she comes back stronger with a bow and arrows. It was all really exciting. I practiced a lot to make it look like she could pull a bull’s eye on that Brambleboar.
I was going to ask if you learned how to use a bow and arrows for this. Are you good with them now?
Mari Yamamoto: It’s one of those things where people just write stuff in the script and expect you to be able to do it. I had to speak Russian in the first episode; I was like, “Okay, I’ve got to learn that.” I’m very prep-oriented; I saw that she comes in with this, so I asked, “Could I be shown how to do this?” Luckily one of the props people had a lot of archery experience, so I went in on my day off and she taught me, from scratch, how to stand and how to hold everything. She came on set and talked me through it as well, so that was really lucky.
This is a little bit of a tangent, but I’m curious because you say that; out of all the skills that you have to pick up as an actor, if it’s Russian or the bow, do you keep up with any of them after you finish a project?
Mari Yamamoto: I think languages are really my thing. I really love languages. The Russian did not stick, but I’ve done a bunch of Greek films and I’ve been learning Greek ever since. These things do stick, I think. Languages come to mind for sure. I asked the writers if I could, like, bust out a different language every episode, and it didn’t happen, so I’m quite upset.
When I talked to Kiersey, Anna, and Ren, I feel like there was this common sentiment where they all kind of envied the 1950s timeline, and they were like, “This feels like a whole other show.” Did you have that when you when you finally got to the modern day? Did that feel like a different show from what you had been doing?
Mari Yamamoto: Oh, my God. Definitely. Definitely. The funny thing I realized was that I hadn’t interacted with a woman in my timeline. I went on set and it’s just this feminine energy of Anna and Kiersey, like, busting out in song after each take, and just giggling. It’s this, like, light, fun atmosphere. I’m like, “This is a completely different show.”
We’ve been in parallel universes, basically. I have to go back and check, but I think it’s true because I had this realization of, “Oh, I have been missing this feminine energy,” because it’s just been military and the trio. As much as I love Anders and Wyatt—they were so much fun—you realize that you had been missing it when you are kind of thrust into it, I guess. So, that was interesting.
Once you’re all together in episode 10, Keiko is hit with so much information and so many reveals. Was it a challenge for you as an actor to keep the story moving while also making sure everything is as emotional as it needs to be?
Mari Yamamoto: Yeah, I would say so. I think we really mined for the depth in each moment. Because there was so much to be revealed in so little time, each moment had to hit just right and have an impact, and then [move] on to the next moment. It was so wonderful working with Andy Goddard, who directed the last two episodes. I have this word in Japanese that is untranslatable to English, and it’s so specific, but he’s just so careful, intentional, [and] thoughtful. That’s who he is as a human being—he’s also just really kind—but the notes he would give on each of the moments [were great.] We broke it down, and the way he would guide me through the moments was so… I wish I had a word for it. [It was] just so beautiful how each note was so specific and thoughtful, and it would just blow my mind. every take, he would come up with something new.
Kurt (Russell) and I would also come up with things. I think everybody was really nervous about the big emotional scenes because Kurt and I hadn’t worked together before on the show. We met each other, but we hadn’t really [worked together]. Kurt has been thinking about my face the whole time he’s been shooting, he tells me, and I’ve just been working with Wyatt. So, what is that going to be like? I think there was some nervousness around that, so we had long rehearsals and long meetings with Kurt, me, the co-creator Matt Fraction—who was on set all the time—and Andy. The four of us just had a lot of these conversations about what everything meant [and] the things that Kurt and I wanted to add in terms of lines. Luckily the writers, Chris and Matt, were open to us, as characters, letting us say what we wanted to in the moment as well. So, all of these things came together. I think we really figured out the truth of each moment.
I’m so interested in your dynamic with Kurt on this. Because you spent so much time with Wyatt were there moments where you were kind of telling Kurt about Wyatt’s performance or anything to kind of maintain a through line? I know they worked together on their own, but was there anything you brought to that from your experience?
Mari Yamamoto: No. I mean, he’s Kurt Russell; you just bow down. I think the most wonderful thing about Kurt Russell is that you look into his eyes in a scene, and you go somewhere together. It was that every take, and it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve experienced in my career as an actor.
I didn’t really need to do anything in terms of the Lee Shaw character because they’d been working on it for months before the show started. They had such a strong sense of how the connective traits were, and it was sometimes jarring because some words that they would say would be exactly the same. It’s one of those moments where you do like a double take of, like, “Which one are you now?” They had this whole completed character.
You also have this reunion with Hiroshi, played by Takehiro Hira, who is older than you. How was it to shoot that? He’s your son, but he’s older than you.
Mari Yamamoto: That was a fascinating scene because I really wondered, like, “After 50 years, would you recognize your own child?” I was looking at videos of families who had been separated by horrific circumstances for decades, and then reuniting. There is some footage online, and I was looking at it to see, “What is that moment like?” I could see that in each case, it’s instant. There’s something so primitive about recognizing your own blood, I guess. I was like, “Oh, okay. This isn’t like a question at all. You see him and it’s like, ‘You’re my boy.’” He’s such a wonderful actor as well, you see that recognition; he literally turns into that boy the moment he sees me. It just washes over [him]. It’s so great when you just get to react off of another actor; I think that was happening for both of us.
There are very few lines spoken in that scene, and I felt the need to say something, so I added the line “You got so big,” which is so silly but also so real, and encompasses all of the things that she’s feeling in the moment. She’s feeling what she’s missed, so I felt the need to say something before I could go in to hold him.
My fingers are crossed for a second season because I feel like there’s so much to explore with Keiko and how she’s interacting with Monarch, her grandkids, Hiroshi, and everyone. Is there a relationship you’d be most excited to explore in a season 2?
Mari Yamamoto: I mean, all of the family stuff, because we don’t get to really address this. I think it’s not until she sees Hiroshi that she really registers that Cate and Kentaro are her grandkids. That was hard to play because she’s sort of in disbelief in Axis Mundi, and then Cate is the one that convinces her to come back with them; that there’s more work to do. That was a really moving moment for me, but there’s no real reckoning of, like, “You’re my granddaughter. You’re my grandma.” We don’t see that, so that would be really interesting to play. And how does she reckon with the guilt that she feels for what happened to Hiroshi’s life, and the fact that she’s lost Billy as well?
I think another interesting relationship is always going to be her and her work; her fascination with the Titans and her work with her research. She has so much to catch up on; she has 50 years of science to catch up on, not to mention how the world is changed. Is she going to go back to Japan? What’s that going to look like? The last time she saw it, it was in the ruins of the war, so to see all these tall buildings… what is that like? [There are] so many things I would love to explore from her point of view.
We see King Kong at the end of this. I know the timelines maybe don’t match up, but Godzilla x Kong is coming out. Do you have hopes that Keiko will make it into one of the films? I imagine that would also be a totally different experience for you as an actor.
Mari Yamamoto: Is that even a question? [Laughs] If there’s an opportunity, I would love to expand into the MonsterVerse. There’s so much to play with. As a Japanese person, it’s already such an honor to get to be part of Godzilla’s world. It’s such a huge deal as a Japanese person; I don’t even know how to explain it, but it’s incredible. I love Keiko so much, so any opportunity to keep bringing this woman to life, I would absolutely love.
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 episode discussions:
- Anna Sawai (Episode 5)
- Anders Holm (Episode 6)
- Kiersey Clemons (Episode 7)
- Joe Tippett & Elisa Lasowski (Episode 8)
- Ren Watabe (Episode 9)
- Chris Black (Episode 10)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
The Legendary MonsterVerse continues with Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, a sci-fi action series created for Apple TV+. Set after the events of Godzilla vs. Kong, the series follows two siblings retracing their father’s footsteps to uncover the truth behind their family legacy. What they find sets up a story over three decades and explores the foundations of the mysterious company.
