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Thu 15 May 2025 22:30, UK
In the last decade, Wyatt Russell has forged a Hollywood career in a way that neatly avoided many of the usual accusations of nepotism that plague children of famous stars. Wyatt’s parents, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, are both legends of the movie business, but he never truly traded on his father’s name; instead, he slowly and steadily rose through the ranks to get to his current status as a blockbuster Marvel star.
Interestingly, Wyatt navigated his career path in such an under-the-radar manner that it’s entirely possible that few cinemagoers even knew he was Kurt’s son until he finally starred alongside his dad in the AppleTV+ Godzilla spinoff show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. This was the first time they’d starred in the same project since Wyatt appeared in a handful of his father’s movies as a child. However, they still didn’t share the screen, as Wyatt played a younger version of Kurt’s character, with the show taking place in two timelines.
With the release of Monarch, Wyatt and Kurt’s connection suddenly became much more apparent in the public eye. They went on chat shows together to promote the show, and talk naturally turned to what it was like for Wyatt to watch his parents in their movies.
However, when asked to name his favourite Kurt film, people likely waited for him to rhyme off one of his dad’s cult classics: The Thing, Escape From New York, Big Trouble in Little China, Tombstone. He may even be a big fan of something like Tango & Cash. Instead, Wyatt picked a fairly obscure entry in his dad’s canon.
“Used Cars,” Wyatt stated during an appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark. “I’ve seen it 175,000 times.” After letting the surprise of the hosts dissipate, Wyatt explained, “I mean, I could quote every line from the movie. It’s the closest to his humour – to my dad’s humour – that I know. Everything about that movie to me is perfect.”
Wyatt name-checking this lesser-known film surely led many fans to seek out Used Cars, which came out in 1980 and was the second movie by director Robert Zemeckis. Of course, he would go on to helm megahits like the Back to the Future franchise and Forrest Gump, but in his early days, a satirical black comedy with Kurt as a shady second-hand car salesman was more his speed.
Used Cars wasn’t a particularly big hit upon release, but as with almost every beloved Kurt movie, it has developed a considerable cult following over the years. Kurt told The Dan Patrick Show that he had great memories of working on the film with Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale, revealing that it was like a crash course in the art of comedy. “Character-wise, I had fun every day,” he smiled. “I mean, it was just a blast…I didn’t really know that much about comedy, but these guys created comedy. They were fantastic.”
As for why Wyatt watched Used Cars so often as a kid, instead of some of his dad’s more established flicks, he revealed it was all thanks to a regular family holiday. “We would go a couple of hours north of Toronto every year, and we didn’t have TV in this lake cabin that we were in,” he remembered. “They only had a VHS player, and we had a VHS of Steve Martin: Best of SNL, Martin Short: Best of SNL, and then we had Used Cars.”
Wyatt insisted that his father didn’t bring the Used Cars VHS with them on these family trips, but that the tape came with the cabin. Why was one of the only three VHS tapes in this remote cabin one of his dad’s most random flicks? Who knows? What is certain, though, is that this fateful tape helped the young boy form a strong attachment to the movie, which still stands today.
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