The third and final season of Legion, the trippy, mind-bending series based on Marvel Comics, returns later this month with the addition of reality show contestant, model and illustrator Lauren Tsai.
In her debut acting role, Tsai plays time-traveling mutant Switch, who befriends fellow mutant David Haller (played by Dan Stevens). Haller is a young man with schizophrenia who discovers he possesses special powers.
Helmed by creator and executive producer Noah Hawley (Fargo), Legion is dense and complex programming that has cultivated an obsessive fan base.
Hawley says that in writing Tsai’s character, he set out to create someone “who doesn’t get a lot of love.
“She’s very different, and she’s very useful to David – until she’s not,” he says.
“She’s a character entering from a very different world. She has a great gift, but the thing about the gift is that it’s not free. It takes a toll”.
Tsai developed a fan base of her own after appearing in Netflix’s 2016/7 Japanese reality show, Terrace House: Aloha State.
After Terrace House, she won the part as Switch and moved from Tokyo to Los Angeles late last year to begin filming.
Tsai says she had never watched Legion until she got cast, and then binged the first two seasons.
“I fell in love with the character of Switch,” says Tsai, who is of Eurasian descent (her paternal grandparents are from Beijing). She was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Hawaii.
“My character is someone we know doesn’t exist just inside of David’s head. She’s someone very real. There was not even a cell in my body that doubted I was going to take this part.”
Tsai was working as a model and illustrator in Tokyo, where she decamped after high school as part of a gap year, before landing the Legion gig. She chose Tokyo, she says, “for art and adventure”.
Being selected as one of the Terrace House housemates helped her cope with the shyness she says has dogged her since youth.
“I had to overcome worrying what people would think of me,” she says.
“I realised that no matter what you do, whether y...
The third and final season of Legion, the trippy, mind-bending series based on Marvel Comics, returns later this month with the addition of reality show contestant, model and illustrator Lauren Tsai.
In her debut acting role, Tsai plays time-traveling mutant Switch, who befriends fellow mutant David Haller (played by Dan Stevens). Haller is a young man with schizophrenia who discovers he possesses special powers.
Helmed by creator and executive producer Noah Hawley (Fargo), Legion is dense and complex programming that has cultivated an obsessive fan base.
Hawley says that in writing Tsai’s character, he set out to create someone “who doesn’t get a lot of love.
“She’s very different, and she’s very useful to David – until she’s not,” he says.
“She’s a character entering from a very different world. She has a great gift, but the thing about the gift is that it’s not free. It takes a toll”.
Tsai developed a fan base of her own after appearing in Netflix’s 2016/7 Japanese reality show, Terrace House: Aloha State.
After Terrace House, she won the part as Switch and moved from Tokyo to Los Angeles late last year to begin filming.
Tsai says she had never watched Legion until she got cast, and then binged the first two seasons.
“I fell in love with the character of Switch,” says Tsai, who is of Eurasian descent (her paternal grandparents are from Beijing). She was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Hawaii.
“My character is someone we know doesn’t exist just inside of David’s head. She’s someone very real. There was not even a cell in my body that doubted I was going to take this part.”
Tsai was working as a model and illustrator in Tokyo, where she decamped after high school as part of a gap year, before landing the Legion gig. She chose Tokyo, she says, “for art and adventure”.
Being selected as one of the Terrace House housemates helped her cope with the shyness she says has dogged her since youth.
“I had to overcome worrying what people would think of me,” she says.
“I realised that no matter what you do, whether you’re fake or real, people will dislike you or people will love you. You just have to put yourself out there for the world to see, because otherwise how else will the right opportunities find you?”
Season three details are being kept deliberately scarce. The series is available as part of Disney’s slate in Asia from 25 June.
Hawley says only that “endings are always the best part, because that’s where the full meaning of the story comes into view”.
“Legion is about the collision between childhood and adulthood. It’s a grown-up show for children and a children’s show for grown-ups. As teens and kids, we want the genre stories, the simple morality of heroes and villains. But adulthood is more complicated and the morality is more complicated. I think what the show does for a younger audience is that it doesn’t talk down to them, and it doesn’t oversimplify. It’s about the things that we do to each other that are hurtful.” – Kavita Daswani
Published on ContentAsia's eNewsletter, 10 June 2019