Undercover Brits: 'The Umbrella Academy'

Surprise! It's time for another installment of Undercover Brits, and today we are investigating the final season of The Umbrella Academy. Based on the graphic novel of the same name by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, illustrated by Gabriel Ba, for four seasons, The Umbrella Academy has followed the adventures of the adopted Hargreeves children as they attempt to stop the apocalypse with their superpowers. However, every time they stop the world from ending in one timeline, they find themselves scattered to a new one, also about to be ripped apart. 

Steve Blackman serves as showrunner of the Netflix superhero series, which debuted its final season on Thursday, August 8, 2024. The final set of episodes sees the siblings band together one last time to stop the world from ending one last time. Technically, the Hargreeves were born all around the world, but they were raised by the very British Reginald Hargreeves (played by the very Canadian Colm Feore) in the northeastern United States. So all of the siblings, with the exception of one, have American accents. 

However, there's more than one Brit among the superpowered misfits. Okay, actually, there's one Brit and an Irishman, but we're counting the latter while acknowledging that Ireland is a separate country. It's Brit-adjacent! So follow along as TellyVisions dives into one of our favorite hobbies: scouting out Brits putting on American accents. Make sure to tell us if any of these surprised you or if you already spotted our brethren in the Netflix series. 

Okay, fine. We are actually starting the list with an overt Brit. Ritu Arya joined The Umbrella Academy in Season 2 as Lila Pitts, the adopted daughter of Kate Walsh's The Handler. Lila was raised as an assassin abroad, and Arya keeps her natural accent throughout the series. Lila was an antagonist to the Hargreave siblings when she was first introduced but then became part of their brood after starting up a romance with Diego (David Catañeda). 

Prior to joining The Umbrella Academy, Arya's notable credits included Doctors (which scored her a British Soap Award nomination) and Humans. She also has the obligatory Doctor Who line on her resume under Jodie Whittaker's tenure as the Time Lord. 

On the film side, Ritu Arya appeared in Red Notice for Netflix and the indie flick Polite Society opposite fellow Brit Priya Kansara. 

Adam Godley counts as undercover in The Umbrella Academy because you never actually see him, only hear him. He is the voice of Pogo, the Hargreeves' monkey butler. Canadian (it's part of the Commonwealth!) actor Ken Hall does the motion-capture performance, but it is Godley who delivers the apes' pearls of wisdom when the Hargreeves heroes are at each other's throats. 

Outside of The Umbrella Academy, Godley has been working in film and television for over 40 years. His first role was in a radio production of Ernest Hemingway's My Old Man for the BBC in 1975. Since then, he's appeared in dozens of TV shows and multiple films. He had a notable arc on Suits in Season 3, but he was most recently seen playing the Archbishop, Archie, in Tony McNamera's The Great on Hulu.

Godley has also made a name for himself on the stage, earning four Olivier and two Tony nominations for his work in Anything Goes and The Lehman Trilogy in the West End and on Broadway. 

Tom Hopper (not to be confused with Cats director Tom Hooper, who is also a Brit) plays Luther, the de facto leader of The Umbrella Academy, who has super strength but also has the stature (and body hair) of a gorilla. Luther yearns for his siblings and co-heroes to actually act like a family, but they can never really get it together unless the world is on the brink of collapse. Still, Luther takes the burden of being No. 1 seriously and has tried to stay committed to their adopted father's mission, no matter how much it may cost him personally.

It feels safe to assume that Anglophiles were already familiar with Hopper before he showed up in The Umbrella Academy. Born in Leicestershire in 1985, Hopper studied acting at Rose Bruford College before moving to London to act professionally. He has the standard London-working-actor Doctor Who credit and a stint on Doctors, but Hopper is better known for his turns as Percival on Merlin and Billy Bones on Black Sails.

If neither of those roles rings a bell, then you may better remember Hopper as the beloved older brother of Samwell Tarly (John Bradley), Dickon, in Game of Thrones. 

Finally, we make it to our Irishman! Robert Sheehan plays Klaus, whose cursed power of being able to talk to the dead drives him to drink and to be the comedic center of The Umbrella Academy. If you're looking for the Hargreeve sibling most likely to be caught in a hair-brained scheme or to charm their way out of a dicey situation, it's this guy. He's so beloved by fans that Netflix has created multiple "The Best of Klaus" compilations for the audience to enjoy. 

Sheehan grew up in Portlaoise, Laois, Ireland, and started acting in primary school. His first on-screen credit is the Australian TV series Foreign Exchange, which he followed up with guest-starring spots on The Clinic and The Tudors. Before The Umbrella Academy, Sheehan's most popular American credit was playing Simon in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones film. Brits, of course, knew him first as Nathan Young on Misfits.

In many ways, the joke-cracking Nathan feels like a precursor to Klaus. Following Misfits, Sheehan appeared as Billy in Me and Mrs. Jones, Carlos Casagemas in Nat Geo's Genius: Picasso opposite Antonio Banderas, and Vladek Klimov in Season 2 of Fortitude. 

All four seasons of The Umbrella Academy are streaming on Netflix.