As part of a press junket for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2, Toho Kingdom and guest journalist Sabina Graves had the opportunity to interview Joe Tippett and Mari Yamamoto, who talk about their experiences returning to the show. Note the audio interview contains some mild spoilers related to the character developments of Tim and Dr. Keiko Randa in Season 2.
Click to download audio interview
Total Run Time: 10 minutes and 9 seconds
Below is an audio transcript of the interview.
Sabina Graves: My name is Sabina Graves with Toho Kingdom. Hi Joe, hi Mari, how are you? Congrats on the show.
Mari Yamamoto: Thank you.
Joe Tippett: How are you? Thank you.
Sabina: Great! Just to kick it off, season two opens up the world in such bigger ways and it’s really awesome to see your characters who represent like the early days of Monarch and now like the modern version of Monarch, kind of come together and work together in many ways. But just for fun, I do want to start it off with: What were your favorite moments this time around stepping onto set where you felt like, “wow, you’re in the MonsterVerse”? Mari, we can start with you.
Mari: Oh my goodness. Um…
Joe: You can say working with me, it’s fine.
Mari: Yes, that too! So many things though, because we’ve built a whole village in the ’50s, a fishing village, like they made an entire village. That was crazy, and we had a huge festival scene, that was gorgeous. Um, and then towards the end of the season, you know, we got to shoot in crazy locations like dunes and…
Joe: Thailand.
Mari: Yeah, Thailand, shooting in Thailand and doing some like fun actiony stuff there. You know, I don’t, am I allowed to say that? I don’t know. Like I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say! But it was like fun, you know, action, monster crossover, that’s so exciting. That was, yeah, that was super exciting for me.
Joe: Yeah! Anytime we get to go to Japan, I love like, I’ve, I only had like I think one scene in Tokyo and I was only slated to be there for like a day, but I made them let me come early because I just, I wanted some extra time. But, uh, I spent most of my time on a set while everybody else was off on like exotic locations and stuff like that, so to get to go to Thailand at the end with such a sweet little button. And then as I was telling Mari, there was a day where we were out in the jungle and there were like cicadas and like you literally couldn’t hear people next to you. It was so loud and it had rained. It had rained for so long that the mud was up to your ankles and shins, and everybody was just miserable except for me, because I was just happy being outside! I was splashing in puddles like a seven-year-old.
Sabina: Oh my gosh. It’s so awesome, it’s awesome to see the evolution of Tim this time around, kind of like stepping into that leadership role, especially bumping up against Apex’s interference. What was it like to sort of explore him coming, you know, to terms with, like, he really has to embrace where he’s at?
Joe: Yeah. Yeah, it’s this idea of, you know, it’s one thing when you’re fantasizing about the way things should be, and how great of a leader… So I think in season one, Tim always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room a little bit. And then, you know, now in season two, he’s surrounded by much, much smarter people! And I think the, you know, the sort of theme of the season is the consequences of decisions people are making, is the consequences of living in a world with monsters, the consequences of how we respond to that, and in Tim’s case, it’s a little bit of a monkey paw situation where he’s like, “I’m the one who should really be in charge!” And then once he’s in charge, he’s like, “I’m sorry, what now?” So I think it’s really fun to watch him try his best to keep up with that and to be a good leader. And I think, you know, learning from Shaw and certainly Keiko and others is healthy for young Tim in his journey.
Sabina: Yes, and Keiko this season, it’s really awesome seeing you come to the fold with the rest of the family, the Randa family. And I think it’s really interesting to have this opportunity to do a lot of like generational healing when it comes with her son and the grandchildren. What was your approach like going from all the original scenes in the ’50s to now being in this family dynamic?
Mari: Yeah, it’s super interesting because last season, at the very end, I realized I’d never spoken to a woman on, uh, in the series in the 50s. And that was amazing kind of, because it gave me so much to work off of, right? I was like the lone woman in the room all the time, so working on episode 10 with Anna and Kiersey was just like an incredible fresh breath of air, basically. And then going into 10, really not knowing who these people are, yet having like the sort of foundation, like instinctual like love that you have for your family, but then the trepidation of like, how much can I actually insert myself as a mother, as a grandmother? Like, sort of seeing her in uncharted territory because she’s always fearless about monsters, but she’s actually quite trepidatious about her family and all of those things, so it was interesting to play that side of her.
Sabina: What’s really interesting is that, you have her coming into, not just like the family dynamics and her legacy in that regard, but also her legacy in regards to Monarch. What excited you about coming back into the fold as the character? To see what you’ve built and sort of your place in it.
Mari: There’s a really sweet scene in, I think maybe episode one, when… it’s one of my favorite scenes where Tim comes up to me and calls me Dr. Randa, and that’s already like telling of the passing of time, right? And how much sort of reverence you have for her is just really sweet, and bringing me back into the fold being like, you know, because she doesn’t know if she has a purpose here, if she’s going to be useful. And Tim just literally telling her, you know, you are what this place needs, like that gives her like the first step or the nudge of confidence that she needs to really actually step into this world. So, um, yeah! And then, I think she just like is thrust into everything because she’s lost everything but is given no time to grieve or process, so she hits the ground running and she really has to keep going. She’s like, “go go go.” And the writers really made sure she’s like tortured throughout this season! So it’s really like running and figuring out as she runs. And yeah, it was a really fun journey.
Joe: Yeah, I should also say those are like the easiest scenes for me to act because I just have like that kind of reverence for Mari, so to just be able to, like, as Tim to Keiko and Joe to Mari, she’s just such a deeply thoughtful and intelligent and emotionally available actor that I’m… it’s like, this is like a show where I find myself actually just, I forget that I’m in the scene because I’m often watching the other actors. I forget, “Oh, I have a line here, I’m sorry.” You’re really good.
Mari: Yeah! Yeah, the whole cast is incredible and I’m lucky because I get to work with all of them. So, yeah, really good.
Joe: She’s the best.
Sabina: I was gonna ask as well, like, you get to work with Wyatt and Kurt, and so now, now, what was that transition like? Was it kind of like, they’re playing the same character essentially, but did you sort of like, see any fun mannerisms that they share and kind of like, how do you approach Cate’s relationship with Lee now as like an older version of him?
Mari: Yeah, right, they share… I think they really tried to like sound alike sometimes and, you know, match expressions and things like that. And, you know, some words they enunciate and like emphasize exactly the same, so when those things happen, like… audio-wise? It’s matching, but visibly, it’s not matching, so it’s really disorienting, you know, it’s like, “Who are you now?” And so that was incredible! Like, the word “exactly”, you know, how Kurt says “exactly”?
Joe: Yeah.
Mari: Like it’s the same thing! So those were some trigger words that were like, “Wait, who?” But they both have this thing where they just, they can say so much with their eyes. And, you know, they do have sort of like similar eyes, so if you just look in their eyes, you totally believe like they’re the same person. And, you know, and the eyes do the speaking, so it was just incredible watching that. And then, finding Shaw in, you know, as an older man, I think the confusion is that, she comes into it thinking, you know, two months ago he was this person and, you know, the guy I loved, and I still think he’s the same person, but like I think gradually as, in the 10 days of the modern day timeline in season two, I think she gradually finds a little dissonance in what I thought, you know, who I thought he was. And there’s always going to be love, you know, because they’ve been through so much and he literally puts his life in line for her, to save hers and Cate, um, and Cate’s and Kiersey’s, uh, May’s. So, um, it’s very complicated, right? Because when you love somebody and they they’ve become somebody you don’t know or you don’t recognize or you’re disappointed in, like, it hurts, because you love them so much, so that was really an interesting thing to play.
Sabina: Yes, amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time and I’m looking forward to the future of Monarch as well.
Joe: Likewise!
Sabina: And congrats on the show.
Mari: Thank you!
Joe: Thank you very much!
