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Season 2  of The Umbrella Academy brought Robert Sheehan and his character Klaus Hargreeves back into the spotlight. His brilliant portrayal of the eccentric ghost whisperer really highlights his dedication as a performer. And when series’ creator Gerard Way was working on a comic book spinoff about Klaus, Sheehan took his passion for the character one step further and offered the author some of his own ideas. 

(L to R) Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves and Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves in 'The Umbrella Academy'
(L to R) Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves and Robert Sheehan as Klaus Hargreeves in ‘The Umbrella Academy’ | Chistos Kalohoridis/Netflix

Robert Sheehan enjoyed Klaus’s evolution on Season 2 of ‘The Umbrella Academy’

The first season of The Umbrella Academy filled fans in on some of Klaus’ backstory. Because of his ability to communicate with the dead, he was adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves and raised with his other superpowered siblings. 

Season 1 follows Klaus’ experiences with love, addiction, and sobriety. But Season 2 gives the character a little more maturity and clarity. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sheehan revealed how Klaus evolved and why it was necessary.

“I like second-season Klaus, he feels a bit older,” Sheehan said. “He’s gone off drugs, and he’s sort of slowed down. The challenge with season 2 was to put something else in there for him to flee from. Sobriety was the thing he was running away from in the first season.”

“I wanted him to feel kind of slower, a bit more sorrowful,” he added. “I wanted him to feel older as a result of finally being off drugs. A lot of the joys of drug addiction — one of them is that it arrests any kind of personal development. He kind of grew up a bit, he kind of matured a bit for the second season.”

‘The Umbrella Academy’ star was very critical of his portrayal of Klaus

When talking to Digital Spy, Sheehan admitted that he was initially very critical of his Season 2 performance. “I beat myself up a little bit,” The Umbrella Academy star explained. “Because the first two or three months, I was like, ‘No, I haven’t made him different enough. I’ve sort of fallen back into the kind of riding-a-bike style intuition of playing him. Have I evolved him enough?'”

Eventually, after watching the entire season play out, Sheehan said he ended up being “quite happy” with his performance. He realized that he was being a little too critical of himself, and admitted, “It was all going on inside my head.”

Robert Sheehan is sharing his ideas for Klaus’ spinoff story

The Umbrella Academy is based on Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s comic book series of the same name. And Way’s upcoming Dark Horse Comics spin-off novel, You Look Like Death, will be centered on Klaus’ journey as an 18-year-old who gets kicked out of Reginald’s mansion and then heads to Hollywood where he encounters a drug lord vampire and other nefarious characters. 

When talking to Rocksound recently, Sheehan revealed that he was talking to Way while You Look Like Death was being developed. And the actor admitted that he pitched Way a whole bunch of ideas for the new book. 

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“I was badgering Gerard in a few different ways and all of this feeds into the psyche of it,” said Sheehan. “I was sending him comic book story ideas for the Klaus spin off that’s been announced, it’s called You Look Like Death — I came up with a couple of good ideas and said ‘Gerard mate, this is a brilliant couple of episodes of your comic book.'”

“Very diplomatically and very nicely he said ‘Thanks man, that’s really sweet,'” he added. “I like people like him who are far-ranging in their creativity. I try to latch on to those people as much as I can.”

You Look Like Death will be released on Sept. 16. 

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