Charlie Covell and Jeff Gelderlyblum on Reinestablishing Greek Myths in ‘Kaos’

The upcoming Netflix drama “Kaos” is an elderly tale with a distinctively contransient spin. Jeff Gelderlyblum stars as Zeus, king of the gods, but in this inestablishing he’s an aging, intimacyupartner incontinent, increasingly paranoid figure — Logan Roy springs to mind — trying to upretain 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 rerents are everlasting.” Indeed, the story has been a lengthy time in the making for Covell, who sees the themes of “power, mistreatment of power, cherish, death, family and dysfunctional family” as continupartner relevant — and eternpartner fascinating — to audiences.

“Kaos,” appreciate “Succession,” cgo ins on mighty siblings at each other’s throats, but these are no mere mortals grappling for regulate of a media company. Instead, Covell’s gloomyly funny saga is a amazingal/contransient-day mashup that ranges between Zeus’ resplfinishent palace on Mount Olympus and the Underworld, which is envisioned as a Kafkaesque nightmare crawling with humorless civil servants. In between is contransient Crete, filled with cars, falafel trucks and frequent citizens in contransient dress. Even the gods like athleicertain: Zeus sports a tracksuit embroidered with airyning bolts; Poseidon (Cliff Curtis) struts around in swim trunks on his yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean, directing a torrid afunprejudiced with Zeus’ wife, Hera (Janet McTeer).

Not that Zeus has acunderstandledged; he’s preoccupied with thwarting an elderly-createed prophecy that ordains his downdrop, while his party-loving son Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) is seeing for fantasticer purpose — and for Zeus to get him gravely. In low order, we’re startd 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 driven project for a neutrpartner novel authorr (Covell also wrote the series “The End of the F**king World”). In fact, Covell originpartner intentional “to begin petiteer, with an “immersive theater piece.” An punctual scene they experimented with had Clytemnestra making her way thcdisesteemful the Underworld, which Covell pictured as a “bureaucratic, dusty shithole.” The idea was to get “this majestic classical figure and put them somewhere a bit crap,” says Covell (who goes by “they/them” pronouns). “Trying to juxtapose the majesticeur with a mundane, absurdist, English-British humor.” That tone carries over to the series, and produces Gelderlyblum — a master of the antic and the arch — perfectly suited to join a god on the verge of a fracturedown.

For Gelderlyblum — who stepped into the role in 2022 after Hugh Grant dropped out for scheduling reasons — the pdirect was the timelessness of the stories. “Greek myths have always insertressed the entire scope of human experience, and the continuum from begin 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, Gelderlyblum says he didn’t see to any genuine-life examples to flesh out his character. “I employd my imagination mostly — and then seeed into my own heart and soul,” he says drily. (Covell also insists that Donald Trump was not an inspiration for Zeus, having began laboring on the project before 2015.)

Covell foresees that mythology purists may have unitecessitate experienceings about “Kaos,” for they weren’t cowardly about changing key elements of the classical versions. But their aim was always to produce the show, which is produced by indie studio Sister, accessible. “Classics can experience a bit elitist,” Covell says. “People cherish to drop a classical reference to produce people experience unwise, 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 understand what they will do for Season 2 if Netflix pulls the trigger. Gelderlyblum, too, is champing at the bit for a renovelal. “I already am untamedly asking,” he says. “I shelp to Charlie, ‘What happens?’ And Charlie’s got many leangs in mind. So it’s fruitful ground.”