The Umbrella Academy has all the time been private for David Castañeda. For the higher half a decade, the actor has starred as Diego Hargreeves within the collection that turned considered one of Netflix’s most-streamed exhibits in 2019.
Based mostly on the Darkish Horse comedian collection by Gerard Means and Gabriel Bá, and created by Steve Blackman and Jeremy Slater, Umbrella Academy follows an endearingly dysfunctional sextet of adopted siblings, every with their very own superpowers, all on a mission to save lots of the world from imminent apocalypse. Season 4, launched Thursday, is the present’s last installment. As Castañeda now appears again on the physique of labor, he can’t assist however really feel like he’s trying again at himself.
“Once I began season one, I used to be extremely insecure and actually attempting to show myself,” Castañeda says. Nonetheless early in his profession, nobody his household had ever labored in leisure. “I actually walked at nighttime, figuring it out on my own.”
In season one, Castañeda’s Diego had the same chip on his shoulder. Gutted by the abandonment of his wily and mysterious father (performed by Colm Feore) and armed with a capability to govern thrown objects and knives, he crammed the void with a vigilante saviorism that nobody actually requested for. He took himself method too severely, he wouldn’t ask for assist and he pushed again in opposition to all criticism.
“It [was] extra so about, ‘I’m solely doing this as a result of that is what my dad informed me not to do,’” Castañeda says.
It wasn’t essentially the specifics that Castañeda associated to, however the angle. “Once I was in my mid-to-late 20s, I believed I knew all the pieces as a result of I used to be deeply afraid of not figuring out something,” he says. Now 34, “I don’t know something, and I’m happy with that. It opens as much as a curiosity and to understanding different issues, and being stunned.”
David Castañeda as Diego Hargreeves and Tom Hopper as Luther Hargreeves in Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy.
Courtesy of Netflix
He provides, “I feel Diego had kind of the identical points.”
In season 4, the Umbrella Academy siblings have misplaced their powers on account of a last-ditch effort to save lots of the universe in season three. Stagnating with none sense of exceptionalism, they’ve settled into sluggish patterns of failed domesticity. Diego and Lila (Ritu Arya) are married, and share a toddler. He’s attempting to be a standard dad and a husband, and he’s failing.
From Castañeda’s perspective, Diego has latched onto this concept that “being a household man prevents him from attaining his larger good. His concept of what it’s to be a person and a father and a husband doesn’t come from a really pure state of being.”
Once more, issues acquired private for Castañeda. “Numerous males that I do know are married, some are very profitable, some usually are not,” he says. As he ready for season 4, the actor began desirous about “who I’m, how I characterize myself as a companion, as a person who searches for intimacy with another person. Diego tends to be withheld on his potential, and he locations it on different individuals which can be near him, like a kind of resentment of feeling duty.”
On the similar time, Castañeda had accomplished some rising up himself since season one. “I didn’t have that chip [on my shoulder],” he says, so he was in a position “to make enjoyable of myself and never take myself as severely, and in that course of, get pleasure from it a lot, rather more.”
The consequence meant a special preparatory course of for season 4. “I used to be capable of apply a special method of working the place it wasn’t simply script evaluation, however it was extra so dreamwork,” he says. “Tapping into the unconscious of my very own self.”
David Castañeda
Storm Santos
He additionally continued to be taught from these round him. Nick Offerman and real-life spouse Megan Mullally joined this season’s forged as Gene and Jean, the married and murderous leaders of a clandestine affiliation who predict an upcoming reckoning. But, regardless of their bloody techniques, Castañeda was endeared by the brand new characters.
“Gene and Jean had a relationship that felt so wholesome, regardless that they have been doing actually messy issues,” he says. It’s true – regardless of a moderately maniacal lifestyle, their love for each other appears to come back rather more naturally than Diego and Lila’s ever does. “At any time when I had a possibility to be round them, it was nearly taking a look at two relationship counselors,” Castañeda says.
Plus, he provides, Offerman and Mullally have been a delight — made even higher by the revelation that the duo requested to hitch the present after turning into ardent followers. “That was superb,” Castañeda says.
Outdoors of his private journey, anticipation for Umbrella Academy‘s season 4 launch hit an unlucky bump within the highway earlier this summer season, when a Rolling Stone report accused showrunner Blackman of fostering a hostile office on set. Blackman’s consultant later informed THR the claims have been “fully unfaithful.”
“I don’t know a lot,” Castañeda says when requested concerning the backwards and forwards. “What I do know is my very own expertise. He’s been phenomenal. I can solely communicate from a singular expertise with myself, and who he’s been with me. Since 2018, he’s been nothing in need of only a actually caring mentor.”
Now closing Umbrella Academy‘s doorways, Castañeda feels partly like a pupil who’s simply completed his final last examination. On the present’s junket two days after this interview, he in contrast the collection’ 4 seasons to the 4 years of highschool: “Freshman, sophomore, junior senior,” he stated. “It’s time to graduate.”
And what’s he graduating to? Ballerina, the John Wick franchise flic that can hit theaters in 2025. “It’s a dream come true,” Castañeda says. “I had a gathering with [producer Chad Stahelski], and truthfully, I used to be ready for him to cease speaking to say, ‘Sure. Sure!”
Umbrella Academy season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.