FX Unveils ‘Legion,’ Noah Hawley’s Much-Anticipated X-Men Drama, At NYCC

By Kayla Cobb @kaylcobb
Published Oct. 9, 2016, 5:15 p.m. ET

Clear out your calendars for January. At New York Comic Con, FX presented a screening and panel for its new X-Men series Legion, and it looks good. Noah Hawley’s take on the troubled Marvel antihero make be the facelift the X-Men franchise needs.

FX’s new series focuses on the X-Men character Legion (played by Dan Stevens), an antihero with severe mental health illnesses, including dissociative identity disorder. Each of David Haller’s multiple personalities is able to control another one of his many superpowers. It’s a complicated and dark character, which, as Jessica Jones and Luke Cage have proven, is not something Marvel shies away from when it comes to its TV shows. During a panel moderated by EW’s Tim Stack, Showrunner Noah Hawley (Fargo), Executive Producer Lauren Shuler Donner, and Head of Marvel TV Jeph Loeb sat alongside cast stars Dan Stevens (David Haller), Rachel Keller (Syd Barrett), Aubrey Plaza (Lenny Busker), Jeremie Harris (Ptonomy Wallace), Amber Midthunder (Kerry Loudermilk), Katie Aselton (Amy Haller), and Bill Irwin (Cary Loudermilk) to talk about the series and how it relates to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“The X-Men, that was my book when I was growing up,” showrunner Noah Hawley said when asked what drew him to the project. “[Legion] really clicked for me, this idea that he was a man who was either schizophrenic or he had these powers. And so he didn’t really know what was real, and I thought ‘That’s interesting.’ To think about making a show where he doesn’t know what’s real, and the show is subjective … you’re in his head, you’re in his world, so you don’t necessarily know what’s real either.”

Like much of Hawley’s work, Legion is breathtakingly gorgeous in a way that will be hauntingly familiar but refreshingly different for Fargo fans. “I can’t explain it rationally except when I started thinking about putting it on its feet, it sort of wanted to feel like a 1964 Terrance Stamp movie for some reason,” he said. “Maybe it had to do with the fact that the last three X-Men movies have been period pieces, and I didn’t feel like I wanted to root us in a particular time. But I do like the idea that if there’s a character who doesn’t know what’s real, then some things feel very retro and some things feel very modern, and there is this sort of alternate universe.”

Lauren Schuler Donner, who has been behind every feature length X-Men film in the franchise’s recent history, expressed her excitement for the eight-episode series. “This was exactly what I wanted because it is far away from the X-Men movies, yet it still lives within that universe,” she said. “The only way for the X-Men to keep continuing forward is to always be original and to surprise.”

Jeph Loeb echoed Donner’s excitement about exploring this particular Marvel franchise. “I think anyone here whose an X-Men fan knows that at the core of the X-Men story is that it’s about being different,” he said. “We live in a world right now where diversity and uniqueness and the fact that we fit in or don’t fit in is on our minds 24 hours a day … The X-Men can never be more relevant than they are right now.”

Dan Stevens stars as the troubled David, an acting exercise he described as “one of the wildest rides any of us have ever been on.” Rachel Keller, who is best known for her breakout performance as Simone in Fargo’s second season, plays David’s mysterious love interest, Syd Barnett. Rounding out the main players of the shortened pilot that was screened at Comic Con is Audrey Plaza’s Lenny Busker, an instantly memorable role that Plaza delightfully plays to its maximum quirky potential.

The rest of the cast won’t be introduced until either the second half of the pilot or the show’s second episode (in Bill Irwin’s case). Because of this, Hawley and the cast were understandably dodgy about who these characters are. Hawley did confirm that Jeremie Harris and Amber Midthunder play people with “abilities” and that Harris, Midthunder, and Irwin are part of a group we will see later on. However, the cast did leak a couple of clues about their characters.

Jeremie Harris on his character Ptonomy Wallace: “I remember everything that happened in my life. That’s one of my favorite things to say all the time about my character, and I can bring people through their memories as well and serve to help them grow and heal.”
Amber Midthunder on her character Kerry Loudermilk: “She’s a doer. She’s a fighter. She’s really not one to dwell on anything. She’ll lead the charge. And she has a really interesting relationship with somebody else.”
Bill Irwin on his character Cary Loudermilk: “Geeky scientist. Brilliant geneticist. With the same name with a slightly different spelling as the character which my colleague Amber plays.”

But the big question on everyone’s mind is how Legion connects to the MCU. Though Hawley said we likely won’t be seeing appearance from the X-Men movies until the show has earned that right, there is a connection to FX’s new series and other X-Men and Marvel movies. “This one is particularly complicated as I’ve tried to explain,” Loeb said. “It isn’t because the Marvel universe isn’t connected because it is. In this particular case, I think this audience is sophisticated enough to know that the X-Men characters live in the FOX world, and we live in a different world. Obviously the fact that I’m sitting here is an indication of bridges that are being made.”

“But I don’t want to make any promises that I have to explain the next time someone asks me. I think what it really boils down to is that Marvel heroes at their core are people who are damaged, are people that are trying to figure out who they are in life,” he continued. “If you start at a place that’s as strong as David Haller’s character is and you have a storyteller like Noah, then that’s Marvel. So in that way I would say it is all connected.”

[More news about FX’s Legion]

For more coverage of all things New York Comic Con, including conversations with the casts of War For The Planet Of The Apes, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, Underworld: Blood Wars and more, visit decider.com/nycc.