‘Jupiter’s Legacy is more like a family drama saga than a superhero show’
I’m a different kind of superhero, Josh Duhamel tells Georgia Humphreys
Watching superhero films, we often don’t see the impact of violent scenes – and the heroic characters seem indestructible.
But that’s not the case with new Netflix drama Jupiter’s Legacy – and that’s one of the reasons the project appealed to North Dakotaborn Josh Duhamel, who plays Sheldon Sampson, aka The Utopian.
“That drove me crazy about these types of movies before, that you never see the aftermath of these giant battles and all the people that probably died just in collateral,” says the 48-yearold actor.
“But in Jupiter’s Legacy, you see some of that stuff – these guys bleed, these guys die if they don’t overtake the enemy, and so they are mortal. And I think that makes the stakes a little higher.
“When they lose a brother or sister, they feel that – and it takes a little bit of time to heal. So that, to me, was great.”
The epic eight-part series is based on graphic novels by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, and follows the world’s first generation of superheroes.
After they gained their powers in the 1930s, the six original and most powerful formed an organisation called The Union of Justice.
Now, having been keeping the world safe for nearly a century, they are looking to their children to continue the legacy. But this causes tension; while the young superheroes are hungry to prove their worth, they struggle to live up to their parents’ legendary public reputations.
“This felt more like a family drama saga than it did a superhero show,” says Duhamel, who made his acting debut on US soap All My Children. “It’s more of a psychological take on it.”
Another element of Jupiter’s Legacy is that it spans decades, exploring two different timelines.
“That was one of the things
I really loved about this whole story – the fact I got to go from the 1930s to present time,” says father-ofone Duhamel (he has a son, Axl, with ex-wife Fergie, the American singer of The Black Eyed Peas).
“There’s a vulnerability, there’s an aspirational enthusiasm that this younger version of Sheldon has. And then to go to the present day and see what those 90 years have done, how does he wear that? What sort of new problems have arisen, and how does that affect you?”
He had “never seen a superhero who is ageing, or on the tail end of his superhero career”, he adds. “It felt fresh, it felt new. I loved the whole family dysfunction, and how the younger generation doesn’t necessarily agree with the old.”
It goes without saying that this show is an actionpacked watch.
“It’s fun to do that stuff. It’s kind of why I got into this business, to be able to fly around and do things that are completely implausible.”
The costume, though, was a challenge. “They’re constantly squeezing in on you. That took the most getting used to – that and all the hair and the beard and the prosthetics. It was a lot of work every day.”
● Jupiter’s Legacy is released on Netflix today