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Netflix still believes in superheroes.
When their patriarch dies, they reunite and fall into a well of intrigue and violence.
Gerard, you recorded a cover of Hazy Shade of Winter for the show.
Have you gotten any feedback from Simon and/or Garfunkel?Gerard Way: [Laughs.]
No feedback from them yet at all on the song.
We both put a list together; we both had it on the list.
We said, First of all, we have the same taste in music, which is good.
And then Gerard says, Yeah, lets do that one.
Gerard, lets jump in the time machine.
I thought to myself,This is a horror comic, but its not a horror comic at all.
And I thought there was nothing like that for superheroes.
I started drawing these characters backstage.
Oh, really?Way: Yeah, cause you have so much time to kill on the road.
Lets say youre playing at 8 oclock at night.
Youre just sitting there all day, so I just started drawing them.
I wrote down a list of interests that I had everything from seances, tarot cards, fortune tellers.
Just all this stuff.
Blackman: Thats great.
Way: And then I tried to make characters based off those interests.
Steve, how did you first encounter the comic?Blackman: Id finished another Netflix show calledAltered Carbon.
I came fromFargobefore that, so I was looking for something character-based.
And I heard about this project.
I hadnt met Gerard yet, and I started reading the comics.
Im not a graphic-novel fan, but the graphic novel spoke to me.
At the end of volume one, I knew every character and I knew who they were.
And I read it instantly as a dysfunctional family.
And then I talked to this guy [points at Way], and the rest is history.
Way: They werent a family when I first created them.
Oh, really?Way: They were just this collection of weirdos.
And I remember the moment where I was like,Oh, Im gonna make them related.
There was a contract thing, and he wasnt the showrunner anymore, and Steve came on.
And then Steve brought me in to meet the writers room.
They just sat and asked me questions for a day.
And then I created this 18-page document that spelled everything out forThe Umbrella Academyfrom graphic novel one to eight.
So, they all have that.
They have the plot outlines for stuff that hasnt even been published yet?
Precious cargo.Way: Yeah.
We were on set for the first week of shooting, Gabriel and I.
But I feel like he was always trying to be respectful of the source.
Blackman: We agonize over these things because I want Gerard to be happy.
I want him to respect it because this is the thing he and Gabriel birthed years ago.
Has that changed in the past couple of years?Way: It hasnt changed.
Comics really ended up being a big part of my life.
I just wanted a break from music, in some ways.
Cause its super challenging, writing.
And I wanted to be around my family.
I work from home.
At some point, were going to discuss really making an album or music or something like that.
Umbrella Academyrock opera?Way: [Laughs.]
But I dont go in much for Broadway or theater.
Blackman: If youre looking for badass tambourine, Im your guy.
Tell me about casting Mary J. Blige and Cameron Britton as time-traveling assassins.
Its the odd-couple surprise of the season.Blackman: The oddest couple of the season.
I knew I wanted Cameron Britton fromMindhunter.
They go, Yeah, she wants to be an assassin.
She wants to throw punches and kick and shoot.
And she did a lot of her own stunts.
Really?Blackman: Yes!
We have a double when its really dangerous, but she did a lot of that.
And then her and Cameron became really good friends offscreen.
So when theyre together, you buy that theyve been doing this for years, killing people.
Where did you find Aidan Gallagher, the kid who plays Number Five?Blackman: Wed gone everywhere.
We had gone to the U.K., Australia, Canada, America.
And he was great.
He embodied the character.
This 58-year-old man in a childs body.
He brought a darkness to it.Blackman: And the sullenness of it.
He came and nailed it every day.
The biggest moment of panic was when we were running out of casting time.
I thought we were never gonna find this kid.
Aidan Gallagher popped up and Im like, Thats him.
People have comparedthe trailerto a Wes Anderson movie.
Way: It was a definite inspiration of the comic when I started it, especially the opening sequence.
I just love Wes Andersons films, and I was really inspired by it.
There were no comics like that.
And Steve helped it find its own identity.
Blackman: There are little moments of Wes Anderson here and there.
Tell me about your philosophy for music cues.
Like, Whats going on here?
Im hearing Istanbul and then these people are being taken out?
I felt there was a wonderful counterpoint to that song as opposed to playing a violent, bass-driven song.
I thought it was a really effective use of music, even though Ive heard that song a bunch.
It still worked really well.
Thats episode one, right?
They think theyre so far apart with each other, emotionally, but truly, theyre all the same.
Theyre all doing the exact same thing in their rooms.
I also wanted to raise the question of, What is acceptable to get to achieve the greater good?
How far would you push your kids if you knew they had to save the world?
Almost all of [Sir Reginald] Hargreevess behavior is unacceptable.
But, you know, its an interesting question to raise.
Its unacceptable, but its also within these tropes that weve accepted about superhero fiction.
Your stories quietly say, Thats fucked up that we sort of accept this as being okay.Way: Exactly.
And I do think that translated in the show.
Their father treated them more like lab animals than kids.
All of them went off into the world, but none of them properly moved on.
And they dont really get to do that, cause hes died.
When you lose someone before you get to say good-bye or reconcile, that leaves behind all this baggage.
It was a very tough thing we did.
Early on, I made the decision that I didnt want to have the physical person on set.
So I called them and I said, Do you want to do one great chimpanzee for us?
They said, Well, we dont really do TV.
I said, Come on, do it with Netflix.
Adam Godley is the voice, but Pogos completely CG.
Theres no one on set.
There are no little white balls?Blackman: There are no little white balls at all.
Way: They were working right up to the last minute.
Blackman: I mean, just a few weeks ago we finished.
It was a monster, that last bit.
We put 458 VFX shots in just that episode.
Wow.Blackman: Thats an incredible amount.
Its more thanAltered Carbonin their final episode, cause I worked on that, too.
We were putting shots in, like, the very last day.
And Netflix was being patient with me.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
