FX’s Legion is a bonkers mind-trip of a show, but if you thought you were hallucinating a certain famous voice in that season two premiere, don’t fret! You’re not falling into some David Haller rabbit hole, but were indeed hearing the voice of Jon Hamm narrating the episode. And it’s not some one-off gig: it looks like Hamm is sticking around.
According to an interview with The Wrap, Legion creator Noah Hawley met Hamm last year about a potential movie project and on a whim asked in an email if he’d be interested in the narrator role. Hawley wanted someone with “a very iconic voice” and thought Hamm would be perfect for the part. Evidently, Hamm was immediately on board.
Hawley wanted to include a narrator to further explore the issue of mental illness, a major theme throughout season one. “We throw around the word ‘delusion’ or ‘delusional’ a lot,” Hawley told The Wrap, “and I thought, ‘well, let’s unpack that and really understand it.'”
In the season two premiere, Hamm narrates a sequence that likens a delusion to any other legitimate idea, using chicken eggs as a metaphor: one egg hatches one healthy chick, while the other hatches a black and diseased chick. That same sequence also discusses a man whose idea that his right leg isn’t his real leg turns into a delusion, and he eventually cuts his leg off. Hamm’s narration reads:
“You see, an idea alone isn’t enough. We have ideas all the time — random thoughts and theories. Most die before they can grow. For a delusion to thrive, other, more rational ideas must be rejected, destroyed. Only then can the delusion blossom into full-blown psychosis.”
We can expect the notion of idea vs. delusional to play into the rest of this season. How, exactly, remains to be seen, as does Hamm’s involvement.
Did you recognize Jon Hamm’s voice in the Legion premiere?
Image: AMC
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