Keep this in mind when you tune into Legion: series creator Noah Hawley isn’t just messing with the head of the mentally unstable -- but very psychically powerful -- mutant David Haller, he’s also messing with yours a little bit.
Hawley, of course, is the mastermind behind FX’s event series Fargo, which managed to retain the crime-noir-but-quirky sensibility of the beloved Coen brothers film, struck out on a daring path all its own, then somehow circled back in cleverly conceived plot twists that evoked the original 1996 movie.
Legionis his latest effort for the critically-beloved cable network; an equally unlikely set-up that has Hawley taking on a cult-favorite character (who in the comics also happens to be the son of Charles Xavier) from an obscure ‘80s-era X-Men spinoff title, who suffers from an array of severe psychiatric disorders while also possessed of some of the most intense telekinetic and telepathic abilities in the X-Men universe.
And all of this is set against a backdrop that, at least for now, is not definitively tied to the established – and oft-rebooted – X-Menfilm franchise.
SEE ALSO:FX's 'Legion' will connect to the X-Men movies (but there's a twist)If there were anyone else at the helm, these would sound like some pretty offbeat ingredients for a successful superhero series. But connoisseurs of Hawley’s masterful penchant for blending the oddball and the inspired into a cocktail of well-crafted television are certainly eager to get a taste.
In conversation with Mashable, Hawley reveals a sense of his own headspace as he put together his superhero show that’s not really a superhero show.
You’ve said that you approached this project by deconstructing its comic book superhero qualities and figuring the story and character out on a human level first. Once you did that, was layering the superhero back into it an easy thing for you?
Noah Hawley:The good thing about it was that, if you create these characters right, then their biggest psychological and character issues relate to their powers. If you’re Rachel Keller’s character and being touched has really big implications, and you’ve been diagnosed as having an antisocial personality disorder because you don’t want to get close to people, it’s both a power and a character issue.
Rachel Keller as Syd Barrett, Dan Stevens as David HallerCredit: Chris Large/FXSo if you can create characters where telling stories about the powers is telling stories about the characters, that feels like the sweet spot. Because then everything’s working on two different levels, and you’re not just saying, “Oh, he can fly and he’s invulnerable.” You’re saying, “No, he’s very vulnerable, and his strength is his weakness.” That becomes the story you want to explore.
Tell me a little bit about bringing in an unreliable narrator who actually knows he’s unreliable. David has an acute awareness of his own unreliability, given his psychological state.
Yeah, I think that’s the fun of the journey, and what makes it so different than Fargo– and the objective, “fake true story” that that is, is it’s treated in a very objective way.
In this, the whole goal was, “How do I make you feel what he’s feeling, and feel for him?” And that became about the story we told and the way that we told it, the filmmaking choices.
SEE ALSO:Bryan Singer explains why the X-Men franchise is perfect for TVThe full title of the [original] X-Mencomics is The Uncanny X-Men, and “uncanny” is a very interesting word because it has to do with things that seem familiar acting in unfamiliar ways. It’s why a haunted house story is still the scariest story: because your house should not do that, right?
So a lot of what he’s experiencing, that was a big watch word for us, uncanny, both production design, the cinematography. How do you create something that feels wrong somehow, or feels off, or feels familiar and then isn’t, and how does that make you feel? So my goal was to create an experience for the audience.
Since Legionis off-kilter at the outset, is there a point where the audience is going to go, “Oh!” and get it in a significant way?
Yeah, the goal was, again, he’s at his most confused in the beginning, and then as the story goes on, things clarify for him, and as they clarify for us. It was never my goal to hide the ball, and to introduce a question and then not answer it, and then introduce another question to say, “Hey, look over here…” There is a very specific story that’s being told, and as it clarifies for him, it becomes clearer for us.
Was there a great discovery in the comic books that just stuck in your head for this?
I won't throw to a comic, but if you look at The Wizard of Oz, it’s both a story about a girl who goes to a strange and exotic land and has an adventure, and it’s a story about a girl who hit her head, right? So it’s working on those two levels, and when you’re in that land with her, it’s very real. And when you’re home with her and she’s waking up, that’s very real in a different way. I think that tension is really interesting.
Since both Lauren Shuler-Donner (who has shepherded the X-Menproperties to the big screen for 20th Century Fox) and Jeph Loeb (the head of Marvel Television who oversees TV production for the properties retained by Marvel and Disney) are involved as producers, where does Legionfit in the cross-connected continuities that the fans are so invested in?
I think on some level, that’s to be determined. I think there’s a bit of a disguise the show wears through its subjectivity – because obviously the [X-Men] movies take place, these latest ones, some in the ‘60s, and ‘70s, and ‘80s. So there is a period-ness to the movies, and by hiding the period, I think the question is a little more open-ended.
Some of that I think is just to allow us to prove ourselves, and stand on our own two feet, and to say, as we did with Fargoin that first year, for the first three hours, there was no connection to the movie at all. So the audience felt, “Oh great – this is working on its own.” And then in the fourth hour, we introduce the money from the movie, and suddenly it was connected. But by that point, we had earned the right to be judged on our own merits.
Legionpremieres Feb. 8 at 10 p.m. on FX.
TopicsMarvel
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