Interview: How Matthew Rhys Became Gilius Thunderhead in Paramount+’s ‘Golden Axe’
How do you turn a 1989 arcade game about warriors beating their way through a fantasy world into a 10-episode animated television series? For Golden Axe executive producers Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler, the answer started with taking the world seriously enough to expand it but never so seriously that they forgot to have fun.
Speaking with The TV Cave ahead of the Paramount+ series premiere, McMahan and Chandler explained that their own history with Sega's Golden Axe made the adaptation particularly appealing. The original game gave them recognizable characters and a fantasy foundation, but there was still plenty of unexplored territory where their imaginations could take over.
Their goal was ambitious: approach the world with the scope of fantasy adventures like The Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian, complete with an epic quest, while maintaining the humor that helped make Golden Axe distinctive. That also meant deciding who should lead the story. Instead of simply centering the animated series around the type of muscle-bound warrior audiences might expect, the producers saw an opportunity in Gilius Thunderhead. “He never gets to be the lead,” McMahan explained while discussing the dwarf warrior's history in the games. This time, they decided he would.
Finding the voice of Gilius eventually led them to Matthew Rhys, but the path to the Emmy-winning The Americans star wasn't necessarily an obvious one.
Chandler told The TV Cave that they wanted a “serious” actor capable of carrying Gilius' emotional weight while also delivering the comedy. Inspiration struck while Chandler was driving home and listening to Rhys appear on Conan O'Brien's podcast. Hearing a funny, quick and charming side of the actor changed how Chandler saw him and ultimately helped put Rhys on their radar for Gilius.
“Conan's podcast is what led us to thinking about him in this comedic way,” Chandler revealed.
Rhys wasn't the only casting choice that gave the producers an opportunity to play against expectations. McMahan and Chandler also discussed Liam McIntyre, whose history as the star of Spartacus makes him an almost perfect physical match for the fantasy-warrior archetype Ax Battler represents. His audition, however, showed them something else.
McIntyre performed multiple voices during the audition and surprised the producers with his comedic ability. That combination allowed Golden Axe to have some fun with the type of character audiences already associate with him instead of simply recreating what he'd done before.
The larger challenge was making sure all of that worked for two very different audiences. McMahan and Chandler wanted longtime players to recognize the characters and details they loved while ensuring viewers who had never touched the game wouldn't feel like they'd arrived halfway through someone else's conversation.
The relative simplicity of the original Golden Axe helped. Rather than navigating an adaptation buried under decades of increasingly complicated mythology, the creative team had room to build new characters, comedy and emotional stakes around the game's foundation.
Ideally, they hope that relationship works both ways: longtime players finish the show wanting to revisit the game, while newcomers might finally decide to pick up Golden Axe and see where it all began.
Golden Axe premieres September 16 on Paramount+.
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