Yamamoto is also known for her roles in “Rental Family” and “Pachinko.”
1 of 5 | Left to right, Mari Yamamoto, Anders Holm and Wyatt Russell star in “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” Season 2 premiered Friday. Photo courtesy of Apple TV
Rental Family and Pachinko actress Mari Yamamoto says her Monarch: Legacy of Monsters scientist, Dr. Keiko Miura, just wants to be useful now that she has been rescued from the time rift where she was trapped for decades.
“It’s kind of unfathomable,” Yamamoto, 40, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“Thinking about jumping 60 years ahead and suddenly being told that’s where you are,” the actress said.
“She so wants to be useful. She wants to be part of the world and actively so. So, I think she wonders if there’s a place for herself in this world,” the actress said. “She’s a scientist and is supposed to be the cutting edge of technology and knowledge, but she’s got none of that. So, am I going to be relevant at all in this world? It’s something that anyone would ask themselves.”
Welcome back, Keiko.#Monarch: Legacy of Monsters – New Season February 27 pic.twitter.com/v4tdNSp7Cu— Apple TV (@AppleTV) February 23, 2026
Season 2 of Monarch premiered on Apple TV Friday.
The sci-fi action-drama follows members of the titular research organization as they try to figure out how to protect humankind from enormous monsters like Godzilla and King Kong.
In addition to wondering if she still has something to contribute, Keiko also must deal with the facts that she was presumed dead; more time has passed than she realized; her husband Billy Randa (Anders Holm) has died; and her son Hiroshi (Takehiro Hira) and her friend/collaborator Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell/Kurt Russell) have greatly aged.
According to Yamamoto, the questions Keiko immediately asks are: “Is my son OK? Who did he become? And the people I knew, where have they gone? Are they OK?”
One of the Monarch team members who help rescue Keiko is her granddaughter Cate (Anna Sawai), a former school-teacher who survived a disastrous encounter with Godzilla.
“It doesn’t even compute that this is my granddaughter because the son is not there, the link is not there. How are you supposed to sort of even accept that when you’ve received all of this information at once?” Yamamoto inquired.
“But, I think, this speaks to acting with Anna. We have this thing where we look at each other and start crying. I don’t know what it is, but we have that and maybe that’s what you call ‘chemistry.'”
The actresses have more screen time together in Season 2.
“We get to do a lot of things together and I really loved that,” Yamamoto said. “She convinces me to go back [to her timeline, which turns out to be 2017]. ‘We need you’ — I think that was the push that [Keiko] really needed because she’s so afraid.”
Keiko is also uncertain about how to proceed with her research without Billy because his imagination had always complemented her logic.
“We’re both searching and willing to search for the unknown and for the answers that are out there. We just have a different approach,” said Holm, 44.
“Keiko is very facts-oriented, with magical-thinking motivation,” Yamamoto agreed.
“Billy’s the one who’s sort of thinking outside the box and she doesn’t dismiss him,” Yamamoto added. “They don’t dismiss each other, no matter whatever crazy thing they come up with. They say, ‘OK, let’s go with that.’ And I think that’s what makes them work and is a rarity.”
After Keiko disappears, Bill tries for years to continue the research they started together in the 1950s.
“I don’t know if Billy changes at all. I think Billy is kind of, to a fault, on this narrow quest and he’s found a teammate in Keiko and a relationship has spawned from that,” Holm said.
“But I think that — especially we find out in Season 2 — he prioritizes this kind of personal mission of finding answers and that kind of nips them in the bud.”
While Holm plays Billy in flashbacks, he is portrayed as an older man by John Goodman in the TV series as well as the 2017 movie, Kong: Skull Island, which is takes place in 1973 and shares a continuity in story-telling with Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.
“I did not internalize that,” Holm said of watching Goodman and seeing how Billy would eventually turn out.
“But I also didn’t consciously keep anything at a distance either. This season, I was kind of given the gift of turning what was my exciting quality in Season 1 into a flaw in Season 2, where it’s like this passion you have is going to be the end of you and it’s going to spoil your relationships,” he added. “It’s going to ruin your family and it’s going to leave you high and dry, where all you have now is this quest.”
The Mindy Project, Inventing Anna and Muppets Mayhem actor has given a lot of thought to whether Billy would appreciate how far Monarch has come since he, Keiko and Lee established it.
“He wouldn’t love it completely, but he would be happy to know that something came from that [sacrifice],” Holm said. “It wasn’t all for nothing.”
“He would hate the bureaucracy,” Yamamoto reminded him.
“Yeah, but he’d know that there was a kernel of of him existing in that,” Holm said.
Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar attend ‘Rental Family’ premiere
Star Brendan Fraser (R) and Sarah Michelle Gellar attend the Los Angeles premiere of “Rental Family” at the DGA Theater on November 12, 2025. Photo by Greg Grudt/UPI | License Photo
