The upcoming Netflix drama “Kaos” is an old tale with a distinctly modern spin. Jeff Goldblum stars as Zeus, king of the gods, but in this telling he’s an aging, sexually incontinent, increasingly paranoid figure — Logan Roy springs to mind — trying to keep his grip on his family and his empire.
“Why do we come back to myths?” says creator Charlie Covell, musing on the source material of the series, which drops on Aug. 29. “They’re timeless; the issues are eternal.” Indeed, the story has been a long time in the making for Covell, who sees the themes of “power, abuse of power, love, death, family and dysfunctional family” as continually relevant — and eternally fascinating — to audiences.
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“Kaos,” like “Succession,” centers on powerful siblings at each other’s throats, but these are no mere mortals grappling for control of a media company. Instead, Covell’s darkly funny saga is a fantastical/modern-day mashup that ranges between Zeus’ resplendent palace on Mount Olympus and the Underworld, which is envisioned as a Kafkaesque nightmare crawling with humorless civil servants. In between is contemporary Crete, filled with cars, falafel trucks and ordinary citizens in modern dress. Even the gods favor athleisure: Zeus sports a tracksuit embroidered with lightning bolts; Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) struts around in swim trunks on his yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean, conducting a torrid affair with Zeus’ wife, Hera (Janet McTeer).
Not that Zeus has noticed; he’s preoccupied with thwarting an ancient prophecy that ordains his downfall, while his party-loving son Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) is looking for greater purpose — and for Zeus to take him seriously. In short order, we’re introduced to a roll call of Greek mythology’s MVPs, among them 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”). In fact, Covell originally planned “to start smaller, with an “immersive theater piece.” An early scene they experimented with had Clytemnestra making her way through the Underworld, which Covell pictured as a “bureaucratic, dusty shithole.” The idea was to take “this grand classical figure and put them somewhere a bit crap,” says Covell (who goes by “they/them” pronouns). “Trying to juxtapose the grandeur with a mundane, absurdist, English-British humor.” That tone carries over to the series, and makes Goldblum — a master of the antic and the arch — perfectly suited to play a god on the verge of a breakdown.
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 addressed the entire scope of human experience, and the continuum from start till now,” he says. On top of that, Covell “built a world that was amazing and fascinating — and very moving, and hilarious. It struck me right in my stomach.”
Although the world stage is rife with megalomaniacs, Goldblum says he didn’t look to any real-life examples to flesh out his character. “I used my imagination mostly — and then looked into my own heart and soul,” he says drily. (Covell also insists that Donald Trump was not an inspiration for Zeus, having began working on the project before 2015.)
Covell expects that mythology purists may have mixed feelings about “Kaos,” for they weren’t shy about changing key elements of the classical versions. But their aim was always to make the show, which is produced by indie studio Sister, accessible. “Classics can feel a bit elitist,” Covell says. “People love to drop a classical reference to make people feel stupid, and I never wanted the show to be that.”
While the eight-part first season can stand alone as a narrative arc, Covell says they know what they will do for Season 2 if Netflix pulls the trigger. Goldblum, too, is champing at the bit for a renewal. “I already am wildly curious,” he says. “I said to Charlie, ‘What happens?’ And Charlie’s got many things in mind. So it’s fertile ground.”
