Gerard Way has shared his inspiration in crafting the personalities of The Umbrella Academy.
If you’ve picked out some personality traits in the characters of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, and thought they seemed a little familiar? You’re likely correct.
Speaking to Rolling Stone about the Netflix adaptation of his comic book series The Umbrella Academy, former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way has revealed that the characters are influenced in part by his bandmates.
Gerard began working on the comic book that ultimately became The Umbrella Academy while on the road with My Chemical Romance in 2004, so this revelation won’t be entirely surprising.
“Being in a band is like being in a dysfunctional family and all these personalities are really distinct and really big, not just the people in your band, but the people you meet on the road or the crew that you work with and all this stuff,” Gerard shared. “A band especially is a dysfunctional family, so there’s little bits of me in all the characters, there’s bits of some of the guys in some of those characters and the different roles that we would play in the band and how those roles would change sometimes.”
He also shared that he relates to the characters, and the way they struggle with their fame “We were in a big pressure cooker of fame and notoriety and the characters experience that in the comic and the show.”
Check out Gerard talking about his original ideas for The Umbrella Academy and some of his original sketches here.