Kurt Russell And His Son Played The Same Role Before Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters

The Apple TV+ series "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters," like the film series that inspired it, skips around dramatically throughout history. Recall that "Kong: Skull Island," which came out after 2014's "Godzilla," was set mostly in 1973 after opening with a flashback to 1944. "Legacy of Monsters" likewise jumps back and forth a lot, exploring a present-day timeframe c. 2015 and a much earlier timeline set in the mid-1950s. To show the legacy of humans that work at Monarch — the secret government agency assigned to oversee and wrangle kaiju — both time frames feature the character Lee Shaw. In the 1950s, Shaw was one of the founding members of Monarch. In the '10s, he becomes re-immersed in Monarch after encountering the show's lead character, Cate (Anna Sawai).

In the 1950s, Shaw is played by Wyatt Russell, the star of "Overlord," "Everybody Wants Some!!," and "Night Swim." In the '10s segments, Shaw is played by Kurt Russell, longtime movie star and Wyatt's father. Despite having a leg up due to his famous father, Wyatt and Kurt only previously worked together when the former was a young boy and was visiting his father on set. Otherwise, Wyatt has forged his own career, taking the projects that interested him, and studiously avoided being associated with Kurt. "Legacy of Monsters" was their chance to finally flip the script a little bit and play the same character for the first time.

Well, the second time. It seems that in 1998, when Wyatt was only 12, he and his father both played the character Sergeant Todd 3465 in Paul W.S. Anderson's sci-fi war film "Soldier." Wyatt was likely hired for both "Legacy" and "Soldier" because he and his father look alike.

"Soldier" may be one of director Anderson's better films, telling a lot of its story through dialogue-free passages and violent visuals. The film opens in 1996 when the United States begins a lifelong project to raise children from birth to be nameless super-soldiers versed exclusively in the language of war. An early montage shows the young Todd being raised in the program, learning to fight, to stand stock-still, and to only speak when given orders. In this montage, an actor named Jesse Littlejohn plays the eight-year-old Todd, while Wyatt Russell plays the 12-year-old version.

Fast-forward to 2036, and Todd is now played by Kurt Russell. Although Todd has always been an efficient killing machine, he will soon age out of his usefulness. (Kurt Russell was, gasp, 47!) He is to be replaced by a new "line" of super soldiers, this time achieved through high-tech genetic engineering. When Todd fails a test against the new soldiers, he's jettisoned to a garbage planet. There, he finds that many people are living on this world and will reach into his heart, find some humanity, and use his wartime skills to protect them from invading humans who would like a little brazen target practice.

Because so much of "Soldier" is silent, one has to admire Anderson for conveying as much plot and emotion as he did. Ultimately, "Soldier" is an action film with fighting and shooting, but it's also a drama about overcoming military imprinting, showing that even mind-wiped soldiers possess tenderness and compassion. Following "Soldier," Anderson would spend years coasting on "Resident Evil" movies, an "Alien vs. Predator" movie, and a "Death Race" remake. Few of these films possess the same dramatic direction as "Soldier."

The above picture is Wyatt Russell in "Soldier." It's also worth noting that Wyatt appeared in several other Kurt Russell movies as a boy, albeit in nonspeaking, background roles. Indeed, Wyatt was appearing alongside his father even when he was a baby. If one spotted an infant during the miniature golf course sequences in the 1987 film "Overboard," that was Wyatt before he was even one year old.

Then, in 1996, when Wyatt was about 10 years old, he played a rogue orphan wandering around the dystopian future of John Carpenter's "Escape from L.A." He and Kurt didn't interact in that film, however. The orphan boy role, however, likely wasn't a result of Wyatt auditioning, nor of Kurt insisting that his son be allowed to act. It seems more likely that Wyatt was visiting his father, and, for fun, Carpenter allowed him to be in one scene.

Wyatt Russell's actual professional career began, as so many do, appearing in a high-concept short film in college. One might have seen the 2006 short "The Last Supper," which reimagined the Biblical event in modern times with modern dress and colloquialisms. The big star of that film was Eliza Dushku, who played the waitress at the Last Supper. Wyatt played Thomas. After that, Wyatt appeared in the kinda-funny 2010 stoner comedy "High School" with Adrien Brody, Colin Hanks, and Michael Chiklis. He also appeared in an in-film anti-drug PSA as a stoned teenager. Like any actor, Wyatt Russell did have to pay his dues.

As of this writing, Wyatt Russell is set to appear in the upcoming Marvel superhero film "Thunderbolts" as U.S. Agent.