KAOS THEORY
THE LIVES OF GODS AND MEN ARE ENTWINED IN KAOS. MEET THE TEAM BEHIND NETFLIX’S EPIC DARK COMEDY
WORDS: JACK SHEPHERD
Janet McTeer as Hera and Jeff Goldblum as Zeus.
Who’s a good Cerberus, then? Time for walkies!
HARLIE COVELL WAS BETWEEN takes on her mythological series
Kaos
when she witnessed a miraculous moment. Jeff Goldblum, who plays Zeus, king of the Greek gods, had just filmed a scene with Suzy Eddie Izzard, who portrays Lachesis, one of the three Fates. They sat down for a break from the baking hot Spanish sun and Covell – previously best known for creating
The End Of The F**king World
– joined them.
“I had loved both of them since I was tiny,” Covell tells SFX. “I didn’t know where to put myself, and she did the Death Star Canteen skit just for me and Jeff.” That Star Wars skit is legendary; one of the best-known pieces of British comedy in recent history.
“I was just like, ‘I think I could die today, that would be fine, this is the best day of my life,’” laughs Covell. “Then Jeff was acting out parts of The Godfather. Then they would do the scenes together that I had written. It was a definite high point.”
That combination of comedy, pure star power and a certain, unquantifiable Britishness encapsulates the bones of Kaos, a series that sees the lives of the Greek gods threatened by a prophecy slowly coming true. It’s a wonderfully creative work with Goldblum at its centre as the tracksuit-wearing, paranoid and vengeful Zeus, who wants nothing more than to retain his idyllic life on Mount Olympus. However, after a wrinkle appears on his forehead and the humans below him start to protest against his rule, the world is thrown into chaos.
What makes Kaos so intriguing is that this isn’t set in some bygone era but in a strange, twisted version of our modern world where corrupt dictators rule and minotaurs exist. The gods are essentially an allegory for the one per cent who enjoy life without doing any actual work.
“I didn’t want to write a political piece,” Covell says. “It’s about abuses of power and gods playing around with humans. I’m aware, of course, that allegory is there. But I wasn’t trying to do something that’s a state of the nation piece. It was more taking these timeless myths and putting them in a contemporary space and then messing around them, trying to reinvent stuff.”