PUCK STOPS HERE

Ex-amateur hockey player Russell’s first starring role

AT first blush, “Lodge

49” plays like a smallscreen version of dude comedy “The Big Lebowski” — but bearded star Wyatt Russell says that’s just because of his appearance on AMC’s new series.

“I look more like Jeff Bridges than I look like my dad [Kurt Russell],” says Russell, 32. “But I think the comparison stops there after watching a couple of episodes.”

Created by novelist and first-time TV writer Jim Gavin, “Lodge 49,” premiering Monday at 10 p.m., is, appropriately enough, set in California. Russell plays Dud, an unemployed, affable ex-surfer dude and lost soul who finds meaning in a local fraternal order that’s seen better days.

The 10-episode drama is produced by Paul Giamatti (“Billions”) and has a shaggy, Richard Linklateresque “Boyhood” feel — it’s heavy on character minutiae and light on plot urgency.

Russell says that’s what attracted him to the show.

“The tone is unlike any show I’ve seen on TV in a long time,” he says. “I think it hearkens back to some TV shows back in the ’70s and ’80s; a sense of optimism inside a set of dark circumstances.

“I used to love watching ‘Cheers,’ because it brought people together from different facets of life and showed how those relationships worked,” he says. “The journey [in ‘Lodge 49’] is obviously more expansive than a sitcom — but the feeling it gives me when I watch it is similar to that.”

Russell has played similarly affable goofball characters in movies like “22 Jump Street” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” (also written and directed by Linklater) and starred in an episode of “Black

Mirror” on Netflix (Season 3’s “Playtest”).

“Lodge 49,” though, marks his first starring role on TV.

Russell initially began his career as an amateur hockey player, playing for teams around the world (the Chicago Steel and the Netherlands’ Groningen Grizzlies).

“I moved to Vancouver when I was 15, lived there until I was 19, moved all over the place for hockey but always came back to Vancouver to train in the summertime,” he says. “That was my home.”

He didn’t move back to LA, or turn to acting, until he was 24. “I’m still new, comparatively,” to the business, he says.

As Hollywood royalty, he’s got a leg up; in addition to dad Kurt Russell and mom Goldie Hawn, his half-sister is actress Kate Hudson.

But Russell says that doesn’t negate the learning curve of star- ring in his first show.

“In anything — journalism, acting, being a lawyer, being a plumber — if you think the new job doesn’t give you some form of a learning curve, then you’ve got an issue,” he says. “Because there’s something new that happens every time. Having parents or people who were in the industry before you does not substitute for learning on the job.

“How people react to you is not how people react to your parents,” he says. “They’re going to react to you in a certain way and you have to learn how to utilize that and make it all work. So [my family background] helped, of course, because my parents are good people — but it didn’t help me to think about what they would have done.

“They’re not in my shoes and I’m not in theirs.”