‘Alien: Earth’ Stars Tease What Their Characters Are Really up to in New FX Thrillride

The stars of FX’s Alien: Earth stopped by TV Insider’s studio at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend to share a few key details about who they’re all playing in Noah Hawley‘s highly anticipated new horror drama.

The series, the first television iteration for the long-lived franchise, takes place in the year 2120 and follows the fallout of a space vessel’s crash landing on Earth. The downed ship threatens to unleash monstrous extraterrestrial creatures upon the planet — including, as the trailer shows, the dreaded xenomorph.

At the center of the action is Sydney Chandler‘s Wendy, a formerly terminally ill child who has been transitioned into a synthetic adult body and thus possesses unique strengths to participate in the mission. For Chandler, the character’s motive is simple: “She is on the search for her brother,” she explained.

“I think Noah wrote a character who is so steadfast in her honesty,” Chandler added when asked about bringing the duality of Wendy’s vulnerability and physical prowess to life on screen. “It’s kind of a story of her finding her ability to hold her own, and that was just a pleasure to play the character because she taught me a lot. She gave me a lot of bravery when it’s scary — showing up to such a big set and taking on such an incredible job. So yeah, Wendy, she’s honest, which is both vulnerable and very strong.”

Wendy’s brother is CJ a.k.a. “Hermit,” a soldier, who is played by Alex Lawther. Lawther describes Hermit’s design as one of “taking care” — of what, we’ll have to wait and see, but he did have one clue about what to expect: When asked if there were any times he became afraid on set, he said with a laugh, “I was covered in lube most of the time… One thing that’s weirdly and scarily accurate to alien goo, drool is KY jelly, so it’s mostly a more slippery experience than a scary one.” Sounds like someone is going to get up close and personal with an otherworldly creature, and he’s not the only one: “We all had that experience at one point or another,” Chandler added through laughter.

Also headlining the series is Timothy Olyphant, who was a bit more coy about what his bleach blonde mentor character Kirsch is really up to in Alien: Earth. “We’re not sure [what he’s motivated by]. That’s the way we’re going to keep it,” he said with a grin.

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Similarly secretive about the true intentions of his on-screen counterpart was Babou Ceesay, who said his Morrow merely “wants to achieve his life’s work.” What that is exactly, he wouldn’t say.

Samuel Blenkin, who plays Prodigy Corporation CEO Boy Kavalier, could say a bit more, since the series’ promotional materials already revealed that his character is spearheading the synthetic program Wendy is a part of … and that he wants to collect he creatures that were lurking on the crashed ship. “He wants to win everything,” he said. “[It’s] a real challenge and a pleasure because I don’t normally get to play this kind of character with this ego, this presence in the room. He’s maybe a bit larger than life, but still, he’s a real person in this universe.”

For Hawley, the challenge of bringing his concept of a new Alien installment to life, with this running backdrop of dangerously wealthy megalomaniacs like Boy exacerbating the issues, was to properly communicate that vision. “It’s always the confluence of all the pieces from what it’s going to look like — the actors, scripts, obviously, are somewhat important — but it’s music and sound design and everything. I see it, I can hear it, and then my biggest job is to communicate that to the actors in the crew,” he said.

Check out more of what the cast and producers of Alien: Earth had to say — including what their favorite Alien movie was — in our Comic-Con suite in the video above.

Alien: Earth, series premiere, August 12, FX and Hulu