Based on the popular and award-winning Dark Horse Comics graphic novels created and written by Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy follows the “children” of Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), a billionaire industrialist who adopts seven of the 43 infants inexplicably born on the same day in 1989 to random women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. While they’ve been prepared to save the world, things are never that easy, and now that the impending apocalypse is very real, Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Vanya (Ellen Page) and Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) must get over their own family drama, if they have any chance of stopping global destruction.

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Aidan Gallagher talked about having already been a fan of The Umbrella Academy graphic novels before auditioning, playing a character who’s essentially a 58-year-old man in the body of a 13-year-old teenager, how traumatic it is for Number Five to know about the impending apocalypse, the unique relationship between Five and Dolores, how much he loves this cast, as a fan and as a co-star, and how he feels about the big cliffhanger at the end of the season. Be aware that some spoilers are discussed.

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Image via Netflix

Collider:  This seems like a very fun character to get to play, and I would imagine he’s also a character very much unlike most characters that you come across, as a younger actor. Is that something that stood out to you, when you read this?

AIDAN GALLAGHER:  I had been a fan of the graphic novels, previous to the audition for the show, so I was a fan, going in. For me, I would be interested in the project, regardless of knowing it prior to the show, as it’s a very unique character and world that Gerard [Way] and Gabriel [Bá] have created. That was a big selling point for the cast.

How did you first become aware of the comic? Was it something that you just came across and read, or did someone recommend it to you?

GALLAGHER:  I grew up a fan of comics and hanging out in local comic book stores, talking to the store manager and seeing what their favorites are. I got turned onto these two graphic novels, and it was unlike anything that I had read before, so I was instantly hooked. You can imagine how excited I was, when I realized I would get to audition.

What was that audition process like? Did you read scenes from the actual script, or did they give you something entirely different to do?

GALLAGHER:  Similar to any audition, I did get a scene from the actual script, but it was slightly different than how it ended up in the final product. I auditioned with a scene in the series, where Number Five and Luther are in a car and we’re having a very serious conversation. It was this really dramatic scene that changed, as the series progressed and the writing started to develop. I think Klaus was added to that scene, and it also had a comedic element to it, which was very fun to play, on the day. It was a nice contrast between what I had done for the audition because your take on the character, although it remains the same from audition to screen portrayal, does get more fleshed out. Oftentimes, when you’re acting out the scene that you auditioned with, you have some preference for how you would do it that you may not want to do with your further developed adaptation of the character, so it was nice to see the scene in a different way.

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Image via Netflix

When you’re playing a character who’s essentially a 58-year-old man in the body of a 13-year-old teenager, how do you prepare for that? Was there anything that you did, specifically, to figure out how to get into this character’s head?

GALLAGHER:  I wanted to do justice to the graphic novels, so one of the first things that I looked at was his posture. Gabriel’s drawings are very immersive, as far as the characters and the world goes, so I wanted to make sure that I got his posture right, the way he interacted with different elements. His mentality developed with the writing, as I acted in later episodes in the series. As an actor, it’s very important to have good writing, so that I can help build the series, and lucky for us, this show has incredible writing. So, as far as getting the vocabulary of Number Five correct, that was a big help. One of the things that interested me about Five was the trauma that was contributed via the apocalypse. I wanted to make sure that I got his PTSD correct. There’s a lot of interesting stuff that happens in the apocalypse. too. The 58-year-old thing was always an interesting dynamic to play with the siblings. But he’s still a person, so although you have the experience that comes with a few more decades of life, the writing took care of a lot of that. I took care of more of the human aspect of Five.

It seems like it would be a rather difficult thing to live with, knowing that the apocalypse is coming, no matter what your age is.

GALLAGHER:  I’m sure, in a more peaceful reality, where he didn’t have this threat of the apocalypse coming, in a few days, he would get along a lot better with his siblings. But in the state that we see him arrive in the show, he’s in his late 50s and his siblings are in their 30s, so to him, they’re essentially kids. They’re also unaware of the apocalypse that is coming, in a few days. He doesn’t let anything or anyone get in his way because of the gravity of the situation.

One of the scenes that I really enjoyed the most was the fight scene between Hazel and Diego, where your character is just sitting there, watching it all happen. What was it like to shoot that scene?

GALLAGHER:  That particular fight scene was more reaction for me because I wasn’t involved in it. But the scene prior to it was this really sweet moment between Number Five and Hazel, and that particular scene was one of the hardest scenes to figure out the chemistry and dynamic for because Five isn’t in this stressed mind-set that he’s been in, for pretty much the entirety of the show, up until that point. It left me in a place of uncertainty for how Five would react to that, and I don’t think Five knew how to react to it, either. That was a very interesting scene for me to take part in.

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Image via Netflix

Your character also has his relationship with Dolores, which was a pretty big part of his life while he was gone. What was is like to develop that relationship, knowing that you didn’t have an actor to get feedback from?

GALLAGHER:  Dolores was definitely a very interesting part of Five that I was really excited to explore. I remember thinking, as I was going into it, about how I would play that ‘cause there isn’t anyone there with Five, when he’s having these really deep, emotional conversations. I don’t know exactly how long it was in the graphic novels, but Dolores spent a long time with Five. He was there for 45 years, and I think she had been his wife for a good portion of that, so those are really heavy scenes, and yet they have this very strange dynamic to them because she’s not really there. I went into that knowing that, if I was going to do a scene with Dolores, it would have to be a real dynamic and a real exchange of conversation. I had to write, in my mind, little pieces of dialogue for Dolores to say, and then Five would act it out, in his head. It actually turned out to be a very sweet thing to play.

Were there things that you grew to appreciate about this character, the deeper you got into playing him, that you didn’t necessarily see, in the beginning?

GALLAGHER:  Yeah. One of the great things about The Umbrella Academy and its TV version is that there are 10 hours of footage, so characters are a lot more fleshed out and further developed. So, I was really excited to see these characters and their backstories extended beyond the two graphic novels that I had access to. There was a period of discovery, with the character of Five, where I learned key things about him that I didn’t necessarily know from the comics.

I love that we get to see him trying to figure out any way that he might be able to stop the apocalypse, and even goes to work at The Commission for The Handler. Did that almost feel like you were a part of a different show, going from being at the Academy to this very odd world that he has to try to work in?

GALLAGHER:  That was one of my favorite things from the comics, the two different dynamics that Five has, between his siblings and the Time Commission. In the comics, he arrives back from his previous life of being this time traveling assassin, and he lands within a few days of the apocalypse coming into affect. He really takes on a new persona when he is in the Time Commission. He is a lot more capsulated, chaotic, ruthless, a bit more relaxed, and more himself, when he’s at the Academy. But because he has this threat that’s always gleaming over his head, with the world ending in just a few days, he’s very pressured, very stressed, and very tormented by the knowledge of what’s to come.

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Image via Netflix

Was there a scene that was most challenging, or felt like it was the most complicated to shoot?

GALLAGHER:  One of the first things that we shot was the last scene of the pilot. It was this very emotionally heavy and dramatic scene between number Five Vanya, where Number Five reveals that the world ends in eight days. As an actor, the first day of any production is the most stressful. It’s the test to figure out and see if the chemistry works between the characters, and you can feel out what direction everybody is going in. It was a great pleasure of mine to be able to work with Ellen [Page], in that first scene, and really lay a foundation for the relationship between Vanya and Number Five. That was a very exciting scene for me.

What was it like to work with this cast?

GALLAGHER:  As a fan, I couldn’t be happier with the casting of this series. Everyone is perfect in their roles. I can’t think of one thing that I, personally, would have done differently. As an actor, it’s a real pleasure of mine, and a very exciting aspect of the show, that I get to learn so much from these great actors. Every day that I’m on set, I learn something new. As a fan, I’m very excited about everybody’s performance. They definitely did justice to the characters, even though some of the details may have been changed from the graphic novels. And as an actor, it definitely helped me with my performance, as for as certain subtleties that I could play.

I was so impressed with all of you in this because this is obviously not easy material, and there are so many layers to it.

GALLAGHER:  One of my favorite things about Five was how diverse his backstory was. You have him growing up in this very dysfunctional family unit, with quite an abusive father figure, if you could even call Reginald Hargreeves a father figure. You have that interesting dynamic, which bonds each of the siblings together, and then you have Five running away at such a young age, thinking that he knows more than his father, and instantly being proven wrong and ending up in this apocalyptic future, where everybody else has died, and he spends 45 years alone. Imagine what that would do to a person. The trauma that would come on from just that, itself, which you see in the graphic novels, drives him to these extreme lengths of studying all of these different sciences, just to try to figure out if there is any possibility of traveling backwards in time. That was a very interesting layer to it. Obviously, the loneliness that comes with the apocalypse, you see in the graphic novels, in his relationship with Dolores, which was a very sweet aspect for me. And then, after all of that, there’s still more to him. Then, he gets hired by the Time Commission to become this time traveling assassin. He’s an incredible fighter. He has this very interesting backstory and trauma to him. All of those aspects took a lot of concentration to play, in every scene. It creates a very interesting dynamic between Number Five and his siblings. So, that was very fun for me.

The season ends on quite a big cliffhanger, and there is so much more story to tell about these characters. Have you had any conversations about where things could go next? Do you feel like you have a sense of what another season could look like?

GALLAGHER:  We all have our own little feelings about it, but we really know that much. (Showrunner) Steve [Blackman] is really the brains behind this whole operation. I hope there’s a Season 2. I’m sure there will be a Season 2, and I’m sure he’s got it all figured out. I really trust him. Going into the series, especially as a fan, I was a bit concerned that we’d get the regular superhero adaptation treatment, where you see certain elements that were your favorite aspects of the characters are lost in the adaptation from page to screen. But I am very, very happy and excited for the fans to see how Steve has been able to capture these graphic novels, and yet, at the same time, he’s expanded upon them to better translate them to a larger, more mainstream audience. So, for me, I have absolute trust in Steve’s vision.

The Umbrella Academy is available to stream at Netflix.

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Image via Netflix