The upcoming Netflix drama ‘Kaos’ is an old story with a distinctly modern twist. Jeff Goldblum stars as Zeus, king of the gods, but in this telling he is an aging, sexually incontinent and increasingly paranoid figure – Logan Roy comes to mind – trying to maintain his grip on his family and his empire.
“Why do we return to myths?” says creator Charlie Covell, musing on the source material of the series, which debuts on August 29. “They are timeless; the problems are eternal.” Indeed, the story has been a long time in the making for Covell, who sees its themes of “power, abuse of power, love, death, family and dysfunctional family” as continually relevant – and eternally fascinating – to audiences.
Like “Succession,” “Kaos” centers on powerful siblings at each other’s throats, but these aren’t just mortals struggling for control of a media company. Instead, Covell’s darkly funny saga is a fantastical/modern mashup that stretches between Zeus’s glittering palace on Mount Olympus and the underworld, which is presented as a Kafkaesque nightmare full of humorless officials. In between lies modern-day Crete, full of cars, falafel trucks and ordinary citizens in modern clothing. Even the gods prefer athleisure: Zeus wears a tracksuit embroidered with lightning bolts; Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) struts around in his trunks on his yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean and has a torrid affair with Zeus’ wife, Hera (Janet McTeer).
Aurora Perrineau in ‘Kaos’ (courtesy of Netflix)
Not that Zeus noticed; he’s busy thwarting an ancient prophecy that portends his downfall, while his party-loving son Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) searches for a greater purpose – and for Zeus to take him seriously. Soon we’ll be introduced to a roll call of Greek mythology’s MVPs, including Medusa (Debi Mazar), Orpheus and Euridyce (Killian Scott and Aurora Perrineau), and Ariadne (Leila Farzad), whose paths will collide in an epic climax. .
It’s an ambitious project for a fairly new writer (Covell also wrote the series “The End of the F**king World”). Covell originally planned to “start smaller, with a” compelling theater piece. In an early scene they experimented with, Clytemnestra made her way through the underworld, which Covell depicted as a “bureaucratic, dusty shithole.” The idea was to “take this big classical figure and put them on a bit of a mess,” says Covell (who uses the pronouns “they/them”). “Trying to combine the grandeur with an everyday, absurdist, Anglo-British humor.” That tone carries over to the series and makes Goldblum – a master of the antic and the arc – perfectly suited to play a god on the verge of collapse.
For Goldblum – who stepped into the role in 2022 after Hugh Grant dropped out for scheduling reasons – the appeal was the timelessness of the stories. “Greek myths have always covered the entire scope of human experience, and the continuum from beginnings to the present,” he says. Moreover, Covell built “a world that was astonishing and fascinating – and deeply moving and hilarious. It hit me right in the stomach.”
Although the world stage is full of megalomaniacs, Goldblum says he didn’t look to real-life examples to shape his character. “I mainly used my imagination – and then looked into my own heart and soul,” he says dryly. (Covell also emphasizes that Donald Trump was not an inspiration for Zeus, because he started working on the project before 2015.)
Covell expects mythology purists to have mixed feelings about “Kaos,” as they weren’t shy about changing key elements of the classic versions. But their goal was always to make the show, produced by indie studio Sister, accessible. “Classical can feel a bit elitist,” says Covell. “People love to drop a classic reference to make people feel stupid, and I’ve never wanted the show to be that.”
While the eight-part first season can stand alone as a storyline, Covell says they know what they’ll do with season 2 if Netflix pulls the trigger. Goldblum also advocates innovation. “I’m already extremely curious,” he says. “I said to Charlie, ‘What’s happening?’ And Charlie has a lot of things in mind. So it is fertile ground.”