FX's Alien: Earth takes viewers to a time and place never before seen in the Alien franchise: Earth, two years before the fateful voyage of the USCSS Nostromo. Earth is controlled by five different corporations, including the infamous Weyland-Yutani and newcomer Prodigy; each company fights for control over territory while also pursuing the "path to immortality" through cyborg and synthetic technology. When a Weyland-Yutani ship crashes in Prodigy's territory, Alien: Earth's cast is forced to contend with monstrous threats both old and new.
The Best War Games spoke to Alien: Earth creator, writer, and director Noah Hawley, executive producer David W. Zucker, and cast members Sydney Chandler (Wendy), Alex Lawther (Hermit), Babou Ceesay (Morrow), Samuel Blenkin (Boy Kavalier), and Timothy Olyphant (Kirsh) about the new series. The group discussed the challenges of portraying hybrids, cyborgs, and synthetics, the state of Prodigy Corp, and what it was like facing down a Xenomorph on set. Hawley delved deeper into what it was like to tell a story in Ridley Scott's fascinating world, exploring the challenges and triumphs of bringing the Alien franchise to Earth for the first time. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Honoring Ridley Scott's Legacy And Creating Something New
The Best War Games: How do you honor the horror roots of the Alien franchise?
Hawley: Well, I mean, one of the fascinating things about Ridley's movie is that it doesn't feel like a horror movie for the first 30 minutes, right? It doesn't do the things that horror normally does - if you think about The Shining and that piece of music, that ominous feeling, the helicopter moving over the glacial lakes. [Alien] starts as this mundane workplace drama about these grumpy characters who aren't being paid enough. They're smoking while they're eating, and they're all talking over each other. You've never seen science fiction before that is just a kind of day-to-day life of a space trucker.
Then into that mundanity comes this slow-building sense of dread and horror. There's a reason that we start with a very similar feeling and homage to the opening of that movie, which is to show the audience that we understand what Alien is. We understand the authenticity that's required for you to go, "We're in good hands."
Then, of course, we pivot off of that into those new elements of the story that we're bringing in. It felt very important to start off with those visuals that tell the audience, and Ridley as well, when they see the exact copies of the mess hall and the bridge, and the comms room, that we're just on another model of the same ship. I think it's really rewarding to go back to that movie.
The Best War Games: Alien: Earth pays homage to Ridley Scott's films, but also includes new elements, such as Prodigy Corp. What inspired Prodigy - this unique corporation run by a boy genius with Peter Pan theming everywhere?
Hawley: When I thought about the fact that this show is going to be called Alien: Earth, and we're coming to Earth, I asked - what is Earth? What is the moment in history? And this thing's not happening in the abstract, it's happening at a historical moment. And I thought about the turn of the century, the Industrial Age, this war for electricity that was engaged in, and I thought, well, if we have this moment now where we're almost in a war frame of morality, what's next for humanity? Whoever conquers, whoever corners the market on that technology is going to win the game. And that felt like a really interesting place to set the show.
Zucker: It's exciting, additionally, that the films have always referenced Earth. There was some ambition to take it to Earth. That became another compelling layer of what Noah has crafted here. He had to bring in, "What's the nature of society, the nature of corporations at that time?" And since the time when he undertook the writing of this, in some ways, our own world is looking ever more familiar to it.
The Best War Games: What has it been like getting to add to the lore of Weyland-Yutani, who are often this mysterious background force in Alien media?
Hawley: It was really exciting. In the seven Alien movies, we have very little mythology about how humanity is organized. By placing it at the front of the franchise, I was able to sort of set the table for a larger sense of how Earth is run, and the idea of these five corporations, but also to look at Weyland-Yutani, not as this "we all work for them" faceless corporation, but as something more. And I was interested in the idea of "well, I've seen Weyland, but who's this Yutani side of the corporation?" That was really intriguing to me, and I thought it was a fun place to start.
Sandra Yi Sencindiver plays Yutani, the current head of Weyland-Yutani, in Alien: Earth
The Three Paths To Immortality: Cyborgs, Synthetics, And Hybrids
The Best War Games: Sydney, how do you embody the character of Wendy in Alien: Earth to really get across that she is a child who has been suddenly given this fully functional, almost super-powered adult body?
Chandler: Yeah, it's quite a conundrum, isn't it? It's a role you can't really research. I found that I pulled from a lot of different things. It was really nice working with the other Lost Boys in pre-production. Noah [Hawley] had us quite quickly steer away from the mechanics of the body and more towards the personality of the characters we were playing. Not so much playing a child, but playing a person. Playing a human. I think if you try to play as a child, then you will look like you are playing a child. But when you're playing the truth of the person that you are, it hopefully works a little better.
One thing I found was, I was on the subway in New York, and I was sitting on the train and looking up. And, you know, adults look so tall when you're down low. And I looked over and there was a 10-11-year-old kid who was at the same level as me. And I realized, gosh, he's on a completely different plane. And I held on to that. This is why I love New York. Hop on the subway, there's your character.
But I held on to that. So, when Wendy stands up and is eye level to her brother, or eye level to another adult, there's something very empowering about that. It's confidence, you know. So I took tiny little bits here and there, and just showed up and dropped it all in, and got to work with an incredible cast. So I felt like I was going to an acting class every day.
The Best War Games: Babou, how does Morrow stay so calm in such dangerous situations - like being trapped on a spaceship with a rampaging Xenomorph bent on killing the entire crew?
Ceesay: He has to get what he has to get done, done. Morrow has a much bigger kind of purpose and responsibility driving him. So he knows that the moment he panics, he's done. So he's just like - stay on track. And that's how Noah wrote it, so give him the credit, too. [Laughs]
The Best War Games: Samuel, why did Boy Kavalier choose a Peter Pan theme for his research, such as naming his facility Neverland and calling the hybrids the Lost Boys?
Blenkin: Well, I think the guy might have a little bit of an obsession. Kind of a "I'm rejecting all kinds of moral ways of looking at the world. I don't need to do that. I can just do whatever I want, and I get to fly around and fight pirates and things." And he sees himself as a little bit of a superhero.
There's obviously a thread in there about children. The hybrids in our show, with children's minds and adults' bodies, and children trying desperately to be adults - I think it's a really, really interesting thread with what's happening right now in the world, and the kind of fantasies that we tell about ourselves, and things like that. Yeah, he's a real piece of work.
The Best War Games: Timothy, Kirsh, very early on, is put into this adult role alongside the very childlike Boy Kavalier, Wendy, and the Lost Boys. How does he feel about being this guiding adult for the Lost Boys, especially when he has to oversee them on a dangerous mission?
Olyphant: I'm not sure that he has feelings. Does he? He certainly looks like he has feelings, but I'm not sure he does. That would make him... Human, wouldn't it? And that's not dodging the question. I think that's the answer. I'm sticking to it.
The Best War Games: As a full synthetic, Kirsh does have quite a low opinion of humanity. Do you think that's something he's always had, or something he's developed over his time working for Prodigy?
Olyphant: I assume - and I guess this is my concern with the AI that is in front of us - I assume it's a very practical answer he's found. He's trying to make things work, and he's decided this new thing is better than the old thing. It's like "Yeah, I can solve your problems, but do you really want to know the answer?"
The Best War Games: And then we have Morrow, who is a cyborg, who blends the robotic and human elements in a different way than the hybrids. How does he handle being both robot and human?
Ceesay: I mean, he struggles with it. He describes himself as "the worst parts of a man." And I think, on some level, he wishes he were more synthetic himself. More like Kirsh. More in control of his feelings, or not even having feelings in the first place. And that was the internal battling that I kind of tried to skate along, in a way.
The Horror and Destruction of Xenomorphs
The Best War Games: Alex, Hermit is part of a team that explores a crashed Weyland-Yutani ship, and it's both this very tense scene and a wonderful homage to the original Alien film. What was it like getting to be a part of that scene?
Lawther: That was quite early on in our shooting, because while we didn't always shoot in sequence, we did tend to shoot in episode order. I feel that, with the characters, we see them as an audience and the actor is also learning stuff about the character as we go. Growing and changing, sort of maturing and relaxing into the thing, which is always really nice.
A sort of happy accident of shooting that way is that the spaceship crash - so much of that was real. The explosions, and the other people dressed up with wounds on them, the lights exploding and the flames coming up. There was a real thickness to the air that we were shooting in. It's always handy, I think, as an actor, because there is only so much collective imagination can do. And having the real stuff in front of you is a really good shortcut.
The Best War Games: After wrapping filming on the first season of Alien: Earth, do you consider yourself to be afraid of Xenomorphs?
Lawther: No, those are my best friends. We're buddies.
Chandler: Yes, I think I still am. I used to be terrified of them as a child, so I think that's still ingrained in me. It's the extra mouth that comes out. That, on top of everything else. It's a nightmare.
Blenkin: Yes.
Ceesay: Yes.
Olyphant: Not the ones on set . [Laughs]
[END]
Alien: Earth
- Release Date
- August 12, 2025
- Network
- FX, Hulu
- Directors
- Dana Gonzales, Ugla Hauksdóttir, Noah Hawley
Cast
-
Sydney ChandlerWendy -
Alex LawtherHermit
WHERE TO WATCH
Alien: Earth follows a young woman and a group of tactical soldiers who confront humanity’s greatest threat after a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth. Released in 2025, the film explores their shocking discovery and the ensuing struggle for survival.
