The Utopian carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. In Jupiter’s Legacy, Sheldon Sampson is the world’s first superhero, and he remains one of its mightiest after a whopping 90 years in the costume. But the world has changed in those 90 years, leaving Sheldon struggling to hold onto The Code, the superhero rules by which he and the other members of The Union live. Worse, that struggle has extended to his family, and it may even tear them apart as Sheldon fights to adapt to the present day society.
Speaking to CBR, Jupiter’s Legacy star Josh Duhamel offered a glimpse into the core of Sheldon’s character. He explained how the death of Sheldon’s father haunts the character in both the past and present timelines, as well as why he himself struggled with The Code. He also teased Sheldon’s path forward, his drive to to do good and more.
CBR: We see Sheldon at two critical points in his life: his origin in the 20s, and then what his life has become in present day. What, for you, was the through line that helped you reconcile both versions, to keep him feeling consistent?
Josh Duhamel: That’s a good question. God, there’s so many! For him, you know, we see him early on when he’s on top of the world and he’s got nothing but blue skies ahead of him, and then his father offs himself in front of him, and it sends him into this traumatic mental breakdown, where he starts having these visions. He’s driven by these visions, which ultimately lead him to this island, which ultimately lead him to these powers.
But even though at the end of this crazy adventure, he gets these powers, but he never truly is able to shake the trauma of seeing what happened to his father. I think that through line is, in a weird way, it’s sort of like the sins of the father, and that he’s manifesting that same thing now, 90 years later, with his own son.
I look at this code, and I’m like, “We don’t kill,” which took me a lot of wrapping my head around to understand that, but in a weird way, it feels like he almost has a death wish. He has this weird, self-fulfilling destiny of doing it himself and in front of his own son — even if it happens in front of — like, he reprimands his son for saving his life, when he should have thanked him! Part of me makes me think, “Well, did he want to die? Does this guy want out? Has he had enough? Is he ready to pass the torch? Is that why he’s so desperate to pass the torch to his son?” And so I think that’s the through line, is that he never was able to forget what happened to his dad, and ultimately carries that through going forward.
Which aspect of your character do you relate to most and why?
Well, I think we’re both stubborn, and I think we both have very rigid ideas of how we want to go forward, but at the same time, I’ve always prided myself on my ability to see the other person’s side of things and put myself in their shoes and understand them. That’s helped me a lot in my life.
I think that that’s what Sheldon is learning, is that this old way of going about things isn’t really working anymore and he needs to figure out how to continue forward, and that means listening. It means seeing people. It means understanding different ideas. You can disagree with him as much as you want about this code and how rigid and antiquated maybe it is, but I think that he always had the greater good in mind. It was always for good intentions. I think that he’s willing to listen, if he believes that the motives behind these new ideas are also for the greater good.
Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy stars Josh Duhamel as The Utopian, Ben Daniels as Brain-Wave, Leslie Bibb as Lady Liberty, Elena Kampouris as Chloe Sampson, Andrew Horton as Brandon Sampson, Mike Wade as The Flare, Anna Akana as Raikou and Matt Lanter as Skyfox. The series premieres May 7 on Netflix.
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