The culmination of our exciting coverage of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters for the Kaiju Community has come. Kaiju United was honored with the chance to sit down briefly with Joe Tippett and Elisa Lasowski to discuss their involvement with Monarch. The show has currently dropped their fifth episode, and has received much love from the fanbase for its return to the tone set by Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla (2014) and sharp, character-driven writing. Of course, the Titans are also pretty cool too. Read on and get some insight from Joe Tippett (Tim) and Elisa Lasowski (Duvall), our two focal Monarch Agents within the show!
Jacob Lyngle: Jacob with Kaiju United! How’s it going, guys?
Joe Tippett: Hey Jacob.
Elisa Lasowski: Hey Jacob!
Jacob Lyngle: First off, what was it like stepping into such a massive franchise with legacy behind it, such as Godzilla?
Elisa Lasowski: It’s epic! it’s such an amazing thing to step into— to step into this whole universe where there’s been so many of notable characters. Plus, Godzilla’s been around for so long! Yeah, epic! What can I say? (laughs)
Joe Tippett: Yeah, definitely! I mean, it’s also, like a little intimidating because there’s such a huge and loyal fan base– you don’t want to let those guys down. They won’t forgive you for that! It feels like it’s precious material for people. What a great opportunity, though, to expand a universe like that! I think so far, it sounds like people have had, for the most part, been on board, which is just a testament to Chris Black and Matt Fraction and everybody at Legendary and Apple. And Elisa is a huge part of that… she’s very good!
Jacob Lyngle: Did you guys do anything to prepare yourself for joining the Godzilla universe, like seeing any of the films beforehand?
Elisa Lasowski: Sometimes it’s better not to know too much, and to just concentrate on your part. But, I certainly looked at some of the films just out of curiosity! Our show, Monarch, the story holds on its own, but it’s also intertwined within this universe that Legendary has created. It’s adjacent to the other media. Joe was talking about this earlier, but there are a lot of seeds that have been planted in our show that kind of link to a lot of other things. And at the same time, they’re just standalone stories that are independent. And so you could absolutely kind of approach you know, our end of the work by just going here, you know, what, I’m just gonna concentrate on creating like, a character that is believable. And just write along with ignorance in a way, you know, but kind of just dived into it, because it’s fun.
Joe Tippett: I’ve watched all the latest movies. I actually really like Bryan Cranston in Godzilla (2014). That [his performance] was really helpful because his character is so dropped in, and there was something about that, particularly as our story was more human-focused, to take cues from. I think it can be a little bit like, oh, well, it’s really about the monsters so you can phone it in, but like, I think it’s to the detriment of the whole thing. That’s what’s great about our show– you get the best of both worlds.
Jacob Lyngle: How was it acting alongside an ensemble cast for the show? Because I mean, all of you guys are kind of the main characters of this event series, or as Elisa said, this epic?
Elisa Lasowski: It was a really nice ensemble cast, actually! And to me, I experienced it as fairly intimate as the bunch of us in the cast are the key players. There’s quite a few characters, but also not that many at the same time. I felt that it was a really big world, but in the work itself, there was something real and smaller about it. Everybody bringing in their own flavors and their own colors; like for instance, the experience of reading the first couple of scripts was nice. All of the colors and personalities were represented somehow, like, you know, like, you’ve got some red and some blue and some orange and like, they just felt like super colorful, and I think the cast and the ensemble is just like representative of all that.
Joe Tippett: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, it feels like a cast of all stars. I mean, obviously, getting to work with Kurt Russell is a bit of a dream come true. It really didn’t feel like there was any squeaky wheels, either. Everybody was just fantastic, on their A-game, and really great scene partners. I remember when we were wrapping, Elisa had said to me, I can’t believe you had never acted before! And I was like, I obviously have acted…You know, she’s kind of like that kind of person. But everybody else was fantastic!
Jacob Lyngle: That’s all the time we have guys. Thank you so much.
Elisa Lasowski: Thank you.
Joe Tippett: Thanks so much, man. Nice to meet you.
