He may be best-known as scene-stealing séance Klaus Hargreaves in Netflix’s hit series The Umbrella Academy, but for some fans, Robert Sheehan will very much always be ‘Nathan from Misfits’.
The 32-year-old was an instant hit with viewers of the 2009 superheroes-with-ASBOs comedy-drama, tanks to his star turn as smack-talking teenager Nathan Young.
Despite having bowed out of the show after its second series (with Nathan heading to Las Vegas, naturally), there was hope that Sheehan could reprise the role in Misfits, until the show concluded in 2013.
While Misfits has become somewhat of a cult hit amongst TV fans, while Sheehan at the time admitted it was a “challenge” to quit the role, the actor has now revealed he is unlikely to ever be part of a Misfits reunion.
When asked about a possible return to the hit show, Sheehan told Standard Online: “No. It’s slightly troublesome, all your ‘nostalgia culture’ [and] the past looming larger than the future all the time.
“You know, old Oscar Wilde goes 'Life unchanged, his life wasted' – I might be paraphrasing. We've all moved on and it's been over 10 years.”
However, Sheehan joked that he does often change his mind about Misfits – depending on what time of day it is.
“You are asking me early in the morning,” he said. “If you check at lunchtime, maybe!”
Sheehan does acknowledge that playing Klaus in The Umbrella Academy, which sees the freaky family head back in time to 1960s America in a bid to try and save the world from an impending apocalypse, does sometimes remind him of Nathan.
“I always saw Nathan as knowing the limit of himself, and was quite happy with that, and therefore wouldn't really change much,” he said. “Nathan has always remained the same person.
“Whereas Klaus is sort of in a constant state of change, because he has absolutely no idea who he is. But both have similar coping mechanisms with life. They both play around emotionally with how they’re meant to be feeling.”
The Umbrella Academy season two launches on Netflix on Friday July 31
