The Umbrella Academy’s Robert Sheehan cringed at ‘cold, contrived’ cult scenes that ‘take the p**s out of society’

THE Umbrella Academy's epic time jump in season 2 saw Klaus become a cult leader in the sixties.

The fan favourite character, played by Robert Sheehan, is known for his command of the dead and of course, his flamboyant, witty personality.

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Sheehan opened up about filming the dramatic scenes and spoke more broadly about how the portrayal of cults of TV.

Unsuprisingly, it took a whole lotta extras to pull off the scenes, where Klaus was swamped by hordes of people.

"We just walked out on stage and they’re like, 'Alright, let’s do a rehearsal.' There was 2000 extras there paid to like scream fanatically at us," he recounted to Metro Online.

He admitted the experience was surreal, namely because of the fact it was all set up.

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"You sort of stood there like, 'this is it, this is what musicians or those people who want to be rockstars, they yearn for this moment,' and it’s just been very, coldly, sort of contrivedly set up so we can just experience it," he admitted.

"So [filming the cult scenes] was kind of that it was like, reminding extras to bow down to me all day basically. I didn’t want it to become a cliche cult where I’m a cold leader and give you the crazy eyes, I wanted to stay away from all of the ways in which cults have been demonised over the years."

In fact, Sheehand was adamant that not all cults were bad and often got a rough deal with the way they were painted on screens.

"I’m sure there are many, many, many examples of quite positive cults, you know, there probably are. If there’s a negative version of something in the world, there’s most likely a positive, that’s how the universe works," he went on.

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"And I wanted this cult to be quite positive, you know, nobody’s really going to drink the Kool-Aid or never talk to their families ever again."

Sheehan concluded by admitting that there were plenty of parallels between cults and wider society.

"There’s no definition of a cult that exists that distinguishes itself from society - that’s the truth. You can’t define a cult that is different from society," he continued.

"Society is one big f***ing cult, right? The cult part of the show is just taking the p**s out of society at large."

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The comments come after the Umbrella Academy boss revealed the hidden meaning behind revolting cannibalism scene that left fans ‘heaving’.

He also explained how the cast pulled off ‘nuts’ super-powered tank battle in Netflix’s season 2 premiere.

The Umbrella Academy seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream on Netflix now.