'It's about seeing the gods.as a dysfunctional family'

Jeff Goldblum and Janet McTeer star in a new dynastic saga that reimagines Greek mythology. Nick Hilton talks to them and to screenwriter Charlie Covell about Netflix show 'Kaos'

-  Nick Hilton

Some actors are not made to play mere mortals. Their looks are otherworldly, their presence imbued with that rare mystique. In the parlance of the young, they are pure aura and total rizz. And they’re singularly well equipped to play gods.

“Jeff Goldblum as Zeus,” says Charlie Covell, the creator of Netflix’s new blockbuster comedy drama, Kaos. “Those four words encapsulate what the show is.” Covell, who’s speaking to me over Zoom, has charged Goldblum with quite the task: playing the King of the Gods in a series that reimagines Greek mythology for the present day.

It is an inspired choice. A career that began with him being typecast as maverick scientists – chaos theorist Dr Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, and MIT-educated techie David Levinson in Independence Day – has evolved into something bigger. Brand Jeff: smooth, charismatic, unique.

Sitting across from me in a plush London hotel room, on one of the hottest days of the year, Goldblum leans in, his bug eyes popping. I am sweating conspicuously; he is wearing a leather jacket and looking as dry as the glass of chenin blanc he should be sipping by some Italian lake. So how would he describe Covell’s vision? “Uniquely sexy and romantic and emotional and moving and touching and complicated and charismatic,” he says, the adjectives rolling off his tongue with well-practised, allAmerican sincerity. “And, in the case of Zeus: cruel, surprising, unexpected. I liked all that.”

Where Goldblum looks like he might enjoy squatters’ rights in the honeymoon suite at the Ritz, his co-star, Janet McTeer, has more domestic surroundings. She is speaking from her house in Maine, which serves as a homely, timber-clad background for the actor, who was born on Tyneside. In Covell’s world, however, McTeer is no mere New England expat. She’s Hera: Zeus’s other half and Queen of Mount Olympus. “The idea of playing a god,” she says, “I just found very funny.”