Leonard Peabody was born into the world at exactly 9:05 am on September 15, 1988, on the same day that 43 babies were born to women who had been given the drug Pitocin and were in labor at the hospital where his mother worked as a nurse. It was this fact that made him believe he was special and destined to join an elite group of superhumans who could change the world: The Umbrella Academy. Leonard Peabody and His Strange Obsession with the Umbrella Academy
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In high school
My cousin, John Magaro—yes, he’s another cousin—was very good friends with Steve Blackman, who went on to create The Umbrella Academy. When I was a kid, John would watch it every week. In fact, at one point in high school, he really wanted to be part of it—like badly. He talked to my uncle [Steve Blackman] about it all the time. Eventually his passion sort of faded away but we always joke that he should have been a character on it! I mean come on… Harold Jenkins… that would have been amazing! So in honor of my son’s father I created a brief synopsis for his character Leonard Peabody!
In college
John Magaro was in a fraternity in college. He recently acted on FX’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (2018). He has been acting since he was nine years old, taking classes at James Madison University in Virginia. He appeared in several plays while growing up, including Fiddler on the Roof and Oklahoma!.
After graduating, Magaro moved to New York City where he started studying method acting at HB Studio under Susan Batson. He made his film debut as Sammy Katz opposite James Gandolfini’s Moe Greene in The Masses (2010), which premiered at Cannes Film Festival. Recently, he starred as Leonard Peabody/Harold Jenkins in TV series The Umbrella Academy (2019). In 2019, he will appear as John Loeb Jr.
After college
John Magaro studied both law and pre-med but did not finish either, eventually making his film debut in Welcome to Collinwood. He then went on to have minor parts in movies such as Parkland, Million Dollar Baby, The Lovely Bones, Blue Jasmine, Still Alice, This is Where I Leave You, Joy and The Magnificent Seven. It was only after being cast as Leonard Peabody in Vanya’s Love Interest that he had a part in a major motion picture. Though he has been working steadily since 2010s’ Youth In Revolt (2010), John’s career really began when he played Harold Jenkins in season 1 of The Umbrella Academy.
The present
As an adult, Leonard has since lost his interest in The Umbrella Academy. He has since become an expert on umbrellas, umbrellology. People know him as a legend within that field of expertise. John Magaro plays Harold Jenkins, or better known as Leonard Peabody (season 1), a main character in Netflix’s original series The Umbrella Academy. In many ways, Harold Jenkins is deeply embedded into umbrella history—even before he joined The Umbrella Academy.
How Harold Jenkins became a member of the Umbrella Academy
Season 1, Episode 8 of The Umbrella Academy is titled Bad Boy. It’s about Leonard Peabody, aka Lenny P. In short, it’s about his rise to power. More specifically, in it we learn why Leonard became obsessed with a series of events that took place almost 20 years before (when his mother was still pregnant). The main reason was because he was born on that day. Had he been born during a regular pregnancy, without any complications during labor or immediately after, he would have become a part of group called Hargreeves Incorporated—an ultra-secret organization that consisted of 30 children born on exactly the same day as he.
Relationship with Vanya Hargreeves
The Netflix series The Umbrella Academy had some unexpected fans: Teenagers. On Valentine’s Day, when Season 1 was released on Netflix, high schoolers across America stayed up to watch their favorite show from childhood. One of those teenagers was Vanya Hargreeves (played by Emma Ishti), a 15-year-old freshman at Degrassi North High School in Toronto, Canada.
The death of Lenny
While originally thought to be a suicide, Lenny’s death is later revealed to have been one of many accidents staged by Reginald Hargreeves. The whole family knows that he did not take his own life because of The White Violin’s powers and because Lenny has been responsible for many deaths before, including Hunter’s mother. The audience does not find out if it was really an accident or on purpose until later in season 1. It also turns out that he killed himself in front of dozens of people as another part of Reginald’s plan, so no one would ever know that he’d actually died.
Who is Leonard Peabody in Umbrella Academy?
He is known to be arrogant, violent, antisocial, sadistic, and dim-witted. When he was a child he became obsessed with The Umbrella Academy for unknown reasons. On his eighth birthday, his father finally took him to see them perform but Leonard didn’t seem interested. His mother had just committed suicide a few days prior to seeing The Umbrella Academy which could have had something to do with it.
Does Leonard Peabody have powers?
The official description of Harold Jenkins says that he has no powers, despite being born on the same day as Vanya Hargreeves. However, his name would imply otherwise, since it is a reference to a 1967 movie starring Shirley MacLaine called The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, which is about a woman who can make rain when she cries. This implies that Leonard Peabody may have some sort of power as well, which could be linked to rain. This also might just be a joke about him not having powers, or an ode to how much his friends dislike him because he isn’t special in any way. But knowing The Umbrella Academy universe, there might be something else going on here after all…
