The London West Hollywood’s restaurant was turned into a red carpet fit for a gaggle of misfit superheroes Thursday evening ahead of The Umbrella Academy’s Season 3 debut on June 22. In a corner, newly minted Umbrella Academystars Genesis Rodriguez and Justin Cornwell yell with excitement and embrace. It’s for good reason: the on-screen siblings were “quarantine buddies” for the 15 days that the cast was sequestered ahead of Season 3 filming.
“Our apartments were next to each other. So when I walked to my balcony, ours were connected,” Cornwell, who plays the Sparrow Academy’s “headstrong” leader Marcus Hargreeves, told Tudum at the event. “I was like, ‘Oh my God! I’m not alone.’”
The duo even braved the chilly Canadian winter to hang out. “We were cold. It was freezing! But we were like, ‘What’s up? How was your day? How was your week?’” Rodriguez said with a laugh, before quickly stopping to embrace Laura Hopper, wife to Tom Hopper (aka Luther Hargreaves).
See, there’s no love lost between the Umbrella Academy and the Sparrows, despite the on-screen circumstances of Season 3. As revealed in the Season 2 finale, the Hargreeves’ adoptive dad Reginald (Colm Feore), raised the Sparrow Academy instead of the Brellies after meeting his children in the 1960s.
Aidan Gallagher, who plays apocalypse-stopping Five Hargreeves, and Britne Oldford, who portrays newcomer Sparrow Fei Hargeeves, even shared some friendly chit-chat in between interviews despite their Umbrella Academy rival status. “I quite like Fei’s mood actually, the way she is in the show,” Gallagher teased. “It’s lovely. I’d quite like to have her as a sibling.”
But, Umbrella Academy executive producer and director Jeff F. King cautioned viewers from assuming the two Academies will be one happy family (even though they did still take one mantle-worthy group shot at the premiere).
“For us, the thing that ratchets up the tension is the family drama,” King said. “If the Sparrow Academy are great superheroes who never got a chance to be a real family. Our Umbrella Academy are terrible superheroes, but they’ve always been a great, strong family.”
There’s a particularly powerful scene between two Umbrella Academy siblings in Season 3 that will exemplify that dynamic. “It’s a real throwdown and a real blowout,” King teased. While the brutal disagreement is “shocking” to the Umbrella Academy, it’s old hat for the Sparrows.
Yet, there is still a bigger obstacle ahead — and it’s not exactly the kugelblitz teased in the Season 3 trailer. “The kugelblitz is our biggest danger,” said King. “I think the show’s biggest foe this season is when our characters don’t trust their siblings, don’t communicate with them, and when they’re not upfront and honest with people — maybe for the best of intentions.”
Going into Season 3, it seems as though Luther might be the Umbrella Academy member who is most ready for emotional openness, especially after being isolated on the moon and dealing with the stress of being the “Number 1” Hargreeves. “He’s leaving the past behind him,” Hopper said. “He’s been quite the depressed man. He feels a little bit like he’s dealt with all of that. By Season 3 — where there’s no impending doom that he knows of — he’s like, ‘Alright, cool.’ He’s quite happy about life.”
No one tell him about the Kugelblitz.
