Meet the Monarch: Legacy of Monsters cast — who's who in the Godzilla TV show
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The next big Apple TV Plus show ties into a very popular franchise: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is a spin-off of the recent Warner Bros. Godzilla franchise, taking place amongst the events of the various movies.
The new show features an all-star new cast but with some returning faces too, and with certain characters brought back but with different actors. That's because it takes place over several timelines, as characters in the show's world investigate the mysterious organization Monarch which investigates the monsters.
With that in mind the show might get quite confusing as you try to work out who's who. So that's why we've written this Monarch: Legacy of Monsters cast guide, so you can separate all the stars (and work out what else you've seen them in).
Anna Sawai as Cate
Cate is one of our main characters. She was a school teacher when Godzilla attacked San Francisco in 2014. One year later, she's on her way to Tokyo to settle the affairs of her late father, when she finds herself pulled into a rabbit hole by the web of secrets he kept from his family.
Anna Sawai only has a few credits to her name but most of them are very big. She featured in the British show Giri/Haji, the Apple show Pachinko, the Hollywood movie F9: The Fast Saga and is also set to star in the upcoming Hulu show Shogun. Monarch is her first leading role.
Ren Watabe as Kentaro
Kentaro is a young boy living in Japan with his mother, who finds that he has a connection with Cate — to say any more would be spoilers! His connections in the city can help this woman on her quest for answers.
Ren Watabe is a young actor with only one credit prior to Legacy of Monsters: the 2020 Japanese movie 461 Days of Bento. His father is prolific actor Atsuro Watabe, known for Love Exposure and The Flowers of War.
Kiersey Clemons as May
May is an American expat living in Tokyo. She's a collector of tech and also an expert hacker, so becomes a useful ally of Cate in her mission. May also has a history with Kentaro, though things between them are now frosty.
Kiersey Clemons is a prolific US actress who's been in plenty of movies and TV shows over the past few years. Notable credits include Zack Snyder's Justice LEague, Antebellum, Dope, Sweetheart, Somebody I Used To Know, Scoob! the Flatliners remake and Fairfax. She's also set to star in the upcoming Zorro remake.
Wyatt Russell as Lee
Lee Shaw is a young security contractor who works for mysterious organization Monarch. He accompanies scientists on field trips into remote areas, and has become close friends with his charges William and Keiko.
Wyatt Russell is the son of Kurt Russell, though he's proven himself as an equally versatile actor. After small early roles in Cowboys & Aliens, Arrested Development and 22 Jump Street, he became an acting force to be reckoned with after an episode of Black Mirror as well as Ingrid Goes West and the World War II action horror Overlord.
Since then you may have seen him in Lodge 49, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Under The Banner of Heaven, with the middle of those three also setting him up for a role in future Marvel projects.
Kurt Russell also as Lee
Lee Shaw is also a character in the modern-day timeline of events, and he's been affected by all that he's seen through working for Monarch and the events that have recently transpired.
Kurt Russell is an acting legend, and it's fitting that he's here playing the older version of a character that his kid plays the younger version of.
If by chance you don't know Kurt Rusell, he's been in many 1970s, 1980s and 1990s classics including Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and Tombstone, but he's not stopped acting since then with big-profile roles in Bone Tomahawk, Deepwater Horizon, several Fast and Furious movies, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and several Quentin Tarantino movies.
Mari Yamamoto as Keiko
Keiko is a Japanese scientist in the 1950s. Ostensibly sent to investigate possible bomb creations after the Second World War, she finds that her tracking of radiation brings her upon a much different foe. Now she investigates monsters!
Mari Yamamoto is a Japanese and British actress who's been in quite a few movies and TV shows already, including another Apple show Pachinko. You may have seen her in Kate, Tokyo Vice and Story Game recently, with credits in both the west and Japan
John Goodman as Bill Randa
Bill Randa has already featured in another Monsterverse movie: Kong: Skull Island. In 1973 the man is the head of Monarch, the titular monster-hunting organization, and personally leads an expedition to the monster-filled island of Skull Island.
He's played by John Goodman, who reprises his role from the previous movie for a few scenes. Like Kurt Russell, John Goodman is an icon of the movie world.
You may recognize him from The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Roseanna, Argo, Flight, 10 Cloverfield Lane or for voicing Sully in Monster Inc, and more recently he's been in The Righteous Gemstones, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets and Transformers: The Last Knight.
Anders Holm also as Bill Randa
Before he was venturing to ill-named landmasses, Bill Randa was a scientist who investigated monsters alongside his parter, Keiko, and security guard Lee.
Anders Holm plays the younger man, who goes by Will, and he's a busy American comedy actor normally. He's most famous for starring in Workaholics but has also been in comedies like The Intern, How to Be Single, The Mindy Project and The Muppets Mayhem.
Meet the monsters of the show
Godzilla
Godzilla is a giant lizard monster whose origins are unknown. He's been known to Monarch since they accidentally awoke him in 1954 but he spent 60 years lying low... until returning in 2014 to fight two other giant monsters that could rival it. Unfortunately this battle took place in San Francisco which ended up causing lots of destruction.
Legacy of Monsters takes place in 2015 although we know what happens to the monster after thanks to sequels King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs Kong (and several already-announced future projects).
Godzilla is played by himself, a role he's been reprising ever since his debut as the monster in the original 1954 movie.
Mother Longlegs
The Mother Longlegs is a big horrid spider-like creature that is first encountered by our characters in Kong: Skull Island and is seemingly native to that foreboding place.
It's basically a giant spider with eight long legs but it disguises itself in bamboo fields due to its legs looking like stalks.
It's an aggressive creature that uses webs to ensnare its victims, and will chase fleeing people as far as it needs to go. We meet one early into Legacy of Monsters. You could say it puts the 'leg' into 'leg-acy'.
Another native of Skull Island is the Mantleclaw, a creature which we first met in Godzilla vs Kong.
This is a massive crab-like creature that can disguise itself as a rock until its prey is above it, though it doesn't seem to eat people. It normally lives within the hollow earth (where the monsters come from) but can use its claws to burrow through the mantle.
Endoswarmer
A new monster introduced for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is the endoswarmer.
It's different from all the other critters because while they're all giant creatures, the endoswarmer is quite small, and relies on strength in numbers to survive.
