‘Alien: Romulus’ Director Fede álvarez on That Surprise Character: “It Was Unfair That the Likeness Was Never Used Again”
[This story contains spoilers for Alien: Romulus.]
Alien: Romulus filmmaker Fede álvarez has another hit on his hands.
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On top of a global opening weekend of $110 million, the Uruguayan writer-director’s ninth installment in the Alien franchise has critics and audiences in increasingly rare alignment, as Romulus boasts the third-highest marks behind 1979’s Alien and 1986’s Aliens. The “interquel” — which takes place 20 years after Ridley Scott’s seminal science-fiction horror film and 37 years before James Cameron’s action-packed sequel — may be well received, critically and commercially, but it still contains a few polarizing moves per the consensus.
Bold choices and big swings can sometimes be deal-breakers for longtime fans of a film franchise, but in the case of Romulus, there are a number of fans who, despite not being fully on board with every creative decision made, aren’t willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For example, when David Jonsson’s synthetic character, Andy, saves his adoptive sister, Rain (Cailee Spaeny), from a Xenomorph, he quotes Ellen Ripley’s famous Aliens line, “Get away from her, you bitch,” even though Sigourney Weaver’s iconic character doesn’t say the line for another 37 years in the fictional timeline. So turning the phrase into a motif à la Star Wars‘ “I have a bad feeling about this” has fans divided. Nonetheless, the meta reference for the audience gave álvarez one of his most unforgettable moments at the Los Angeles premiere on Aug. 12. The original version of the line also happened to provide Cameron with his first instance of affirmation at the 1986 premiere of Aliens.
“That was the only time at the [Aliens] premiere where [Cameron] realized everybody was on board, and so it was fitting that we got a similar cheer last night [to the “get away from her, you bitch” line]. It was a religious moment,” álvarez tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Another point of contention for some viewers is the return of the late Ian Holm’s likeness. Instead of reprising Alien’s antagonistic role of Ash, Holm’s likeness is presented as another calculating synthetic character named Rook. According to álvarez, Rook was a collaborative decision with Scott, who also wanted to see another version of the artificial person he introduced 45 years ago. The Romulus team then received approval from Holm’s estate, and using the English actor’s headcast from The Lord of the Rings as a foundation, Legacy Effects built Rook’s torso and head as an animatronic. The practical character was then enhanced by CG and deepfake AI technology for certain shots as needed.
“It was unfair that the likeness of Ash was never used again. Lance Henriksen has been used a few times. Michael Fassbender got to do it a few times,” álvarez says. “So when we started thinking about the likeness of this character with Ridley, it was going to be a torso [and head] that we would build. So it didn’t need to be the likeness of a current working actor, and Ridley was the one who said, ‘Ash was always the best. He needs to make a comeback.’”
Back in February, Romulus co-star Isabela Merced first teased her “disgusting” scene to THR, and while it was then speculated that she’d be the victim of a twist on the franchise’s iconic chestburster scene, the actual story point is even more disturbing than expected. A wounded Kay (Merced), who revealed that she was pregnant at the start of the movie, injects herself with Rook’s Xenomorph-extracted “upgrade” for humans, and the fallout of this temporary life-saving act involved Kay giving birth to a human-Xenomorph hybrid known as “the Offspring.”
As one might expect, álvarez received some respectful opposition to this unsettling choice from 20th Century and Disney, but that’s precisely when he knew he was on the right course. After all, he’d been through similar situations on Evil Dead (2013) and Don’t Breathe (2016).
“They did [push back] at the beginning [with regard to the Offspring], but not because they didn’t like it. They just thought, ‘Is it too much? Do we really have to go there?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, now that you said that we shouldn’t, I know that I will,’” álvarez reveals. “If you’re given an Alien movie by a corporation that is owned by Disney and they immediately say, ‘Yeah, let’s make it,’ then you are failing somehow. So we really pushed it to the limit, and I’m glad we did.”
Below, during a recent spoiler conversation with THR, álvarez also explains why he doesn’t want to rush an Alien: Romulus sequel despite having ideas in mind already.
To use Ridley Scott’s words, you did not “fuck up.”
Thank you so much. That’s what I needed to hear this morning.
Be it a compliment or an audience reaction to a certain moment, what was your personal highlight from the premiere last night [8/12]?
When I watch it with an audience — like I did last night for the first time with a big audience — I see it through their eyes. It’s the first time you have a clue of what you made. The director is the last person to understand what the movie truly is because you’ve been in it every step of the way there. So it takes ten years for me to watch my movies and understand, “Oh, that’s why people like it, or that’s why people didn’t like it.” It takes me ten years to really gain objectivity, but last night gave me a good glimpse of what works about [Alien: Romulus]. There’s a moment at the beginning of the third act [when Andy says, “Get away from her, you bitch,”] and we got a great cheer in the audience, which was a relief to me. Whenever you hear cheers at some point, you go, “Thank God we had them.”
It’s funny because James Cameron told me a very similar story about his experience making Aliens. He said he went into the making of that movie with the spirit of a young man who just wants to prove to the director of the first one that he can do better. He goes in with that arrogance, in a way, that a filmmaker needs to get into this franchise. So he made the movie, and at the premiere, Cameron said he realized what he had done. He wondered how he could even dare to make another movie when the first one was such a masterpiece. That’s when it became apparent to him that it might have been a mistake to try and follow up Ridley’s film with Aliens. But then he said that when Ripley came out in the power loader and said, “Get away from her, you bitch,” the whole theater exploded in a cheer at that moment. And that’s when he was like, “I got them.” That was the only time at the [Aliens] premiere where he realized everybody was on board, and so it was fitting that we got a similar cheer last night [to the “Get away from her, you bitch” line]. It was a religious moment.
For the uninitiated, we last talked in conjunction with the trailer release, and you told me all about your interactions with Ridley and Cameron at the time. You also said that you wrote Alien: Romulus for Cailee Spaeny. What scene of hers made you most proud of that decision?
There are so many, but I think it would be the finale. Having been there with her, you have no idea how tough it was. Even the weapons are hard for anyone to hold and keep up all the time. They’re so heavy, plus there’s the gear, the spacesuit and all the energy that you need to do that. Most actors would ask for a break, complain, collapse or not be able to do it, but she went for it nonstop and gave it 200 percent, which blew my mind. There’s a talent in everything she does, and it’s a combination of her impeccable craft. She always knows her lines to a T and delivers them perfectly. You believe everything she says. She also has a set of eyes that make my life easier. They make my job easier as a writer because half of the story is already there. When you see Rain’s eyes at the beginning, you understand that she’s been through things and she’s trying to keep it together, but she’s had a lot of pain in her life. So the character of Rain saves me from having to explain all this backstory, and that’s a true talent of the stars. They save you from so much more dialogue because you can already see their life in their eyes.
David Jonsson is equally great as Rain’s synthetic brother Andy, and while the franchise has always depicted the upside and considerable downside of artificial intelligence, we’re now in an era where it’s being imposed on our daily lives. So, how much were you commenting on the state of AI today?
It’s definitely a theme, but I always try to avoid commenting too much on it. If the movie didn’t say it and then I say it, then it fails in a way. There’s enough meat on the bone for you to make your own conclusions about what it’s saying. But, our love-hate relationship with AI, we want to choose what we use it for and what we don’t use it for. If AI had a personality and a heart, it would be very upset because we hate it and love it when we want. We live on our phones and depend on it so much. People talk about how AI might cure cancer one day. It might lead to a really enormous breakthrough, so we want it for that, but we don’t want it for all these other things. So we do have such a love-hate relationship with it, and when you put that on the screen, hopefully you think about that even more. So the movie does talk about the complex relationship we have with AI.
As you mentioned, you didn’t want to overly explain backstory, but how much more do you have with regard to Andy’s integration into Rain’s mining family?
In the film, [Spike Fearn’s] Bjorn says to Rain, “He’s just Weyland-Yutani damaged goods that your dad found in the trash,” and when Rook later tries to seduce Andy to the dark side, he says that his model [ND-255] was once the backbone of the colonization efforts. So I’m sure there were many ND-255s that were sent to colonies to be the presence of Weyland-Yutani and the workforce that made the colonies at some point. We assume he’s a very old model that became obsolete at a certain point, and Rain’s father found a decommissioned one that he brought home and fixed until he was part of the family. So Rain just grew up with him; he was always around. At the beginning, he says, “You always laughed at that [joke],” and she says, “Yeah, when I was 12.”
So he was always a part of the family, and when Rain’s father knew that [he and Rain’s mother] were sick [with Lyme disease from the mines] and probably going to die, Andy gave him peace of mind that Rain, who would be in her late teens by that point, would have someone to be with her and help her. But, like we say in the movie, Andy turns out to be more of a burden than a help, because she has to take care of him more than the other way around. So I thought that was an interesting way to set up their relationship.
Similar to Rocky in Don’t Breathe, Rain joins her friends in stealing whatever they need to reach a more hospitable place. This premise and character longing obviously speaks to you, so what do you trace it back to in your own life?
I was born in Uruguay. I was born in the third world. My movies are very third-world stories. It is hard for someone who grew up in New York or Los Angeles or London to understand what it is to be born in the place that the world calls the third world. “Oh, you’re from the third one?” So that’s what I was born with, and I heard this type of story all the time. As a teenager and even in your early twenties, all you want is to get to the first world; who wants to be in the third one? They explain what happened in the third world, and it is usually undeveloped or failed projects. So the desire is to do whatever you can to get to that first world that seems like a promised land where things are way better. But it’s all a construction, right? I’m not saying that [the first world] is actually better, but with time, you start to learn that the place you’re from has so much value and so much beauty.
For young characters, they always want to break free of that old story. So The Blind Man in Don’t Breathe or in this case, the Xenomorph, they are the opposition; they are everything that will keep you there. They are all the things that happen in life that make it so difficult to really get out of there and make it to that Yvaga-type place, that Valhalla, that paradise. The name of Yvaga actually means paradise in Guarani. The name of my country is based on that language.
So it really is a third-world story, and the sentiment applies to anyone that is not from a first-world country, or anyone that is born in small-town Middle America. They will connect with this story as well, but it comes from me being born in Latin America and living all my life in South America. The desire of the youth is to cross that ocean and go somewhere else where things are better.
How much forethought have you and your co-writer Rodo Sayagues given a potential Romulus sequel? Could you pitch something tomorrow if you had to?
Yes, I definitely can. We tend to do that naturally, not even thinking about sequels. For us, movies have not become franchises, tentpoles and sequels. This is a language that I’ve only learned in the last ten years of my life working here. For me, it’s always been about story. So, once we finished, we started thinking, “What do you think happens when or if they get to Yvaga? Is it going to be great? Or is it a terrible place?” We tend to believe it’s probably a terrible place that they think is great and fantasize about, so we naturally started thinking about where it goes and what’s going to happen. And then, a few minutes in, we go, “Oh, that sounds like a sequel.”
But we really try to think about it more in terms of story and if it needs another chapter and whether people want to know what happens next. So we’ll wait to see what people think and if people ask for it. My philosophy is that you should never make [a sequel] in two years. You’ve got to get away. You’ve got to get the audience to really want it. If you think about Alien and Aliens, there’s seven years between them. But we definitely have ideas about where it should go.
Isabela Merced told me about her really “disgusting scene” six months ago, and then you also teased it in our last chat. Well, part of me wondered at a certain point if it got cut, but then it eventually happened in all its glory. Kay (Merced) gave birth to a human-Xenomorph hybrid that’s credited as “the Offspring.” How did this big swing come to be? And how did Ridley and co. react to it?
All my movies have a fourth act. It’s the way we write. There’s a moment where the movie feels like it’s over, and then there’s a fourth act, which is fitting because Alien has a fourth act as well. You could even argue that Aliens has a bit of a fourth act with its last set piece. It’s when you think it’s all done and the movie could have ended, but it just gives you a last set piece that tends to go to really extreme places.
Last night, I felt like that’s what was happening. We got into the end of the third act and everybody was relaxing and going, “Okay, it wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.” But if they turned around and looked at me, I’m taking my jacket off and rolling up my sleeves, because I’m about to really give it to them and go where it has to go. And, by contrast, it hopefully feels terrifying and intense. I could do that the whole movie, but it would be unbearable. It would be too much. It would be one of those experiences where you go, “I can’t do that again.” But, because of that good dose at the end, it hopefully gets you out of the theater with your heart beating. I’m looking to make you feel things and give you emotions that stay with you.
If I give you a script and you read it and go, “Let’s do it!” then I feel like I failed. I need the studio to go, “Are you sure about this? Do you really want to do that?” This is what happens with me and the studios on each one of my movies. They asked me about many things in Don’t Breathe and the blood rain in Evil Dead and were like, “How can we even do that? How are we going to do all that stuff?” So when I get pushback, that’s really when I go, “Okay, that’s good. We’re on track. The studio is pushing back on it.” And they did [push back] at the beginning [with regard to the Offspring], but not because they didn’t like it. They just thought, “Is it too much? Do we really have to go there?” And I was like, “Yeah, now that you said that we shouldn’t, I know that I will.” So that’s exactly what we did here. If you’re given an Alien movie by a corporation that is owned by Disney and they immediately say, “Yeah, let’s make it,” then you are failing somehow. So we really pushed it to the limit, and I’m glad we did.
And the reason Kay was able to give birth to this human-Xenomorph hybrid was because an Ash-looking (Ian Holm) synthetic named Rook created a concoction that she injected herself with to survive her existing wounds. Between Alien’s Ash and Aliens’ Bishop (Lance Henriksen), did you want the Ash-type android character because he’d not only bring out a dark side in Andy, but he’d also be more likely to create this perversion of science?
It was unfair that the likeness of Ash was never used again. Lance Henriksen has been used a few times. Michael Fassbender got to do it a few times. So when we started thinking about the likeness of this character with Ridley, it was going to be a torso [and head] that we would build. So it didn’t need to be the likeness of a current working actor, and Ridley was the one who said, “Ash was always the best. He needs to make a comeback.” So we went for it with the permission of the family: his widow and all of his kids. We wanted to make sure everybody was on board with the idea of bringing his likeness back.
Rook is a different character, but I play with your prejudice because fans of the original know that face. There’s also a whole generation [of new viewers] that are going to watch this movie and the character is not going to mean much to them. They’re not going to feel that effect, but for the ones who’ve seen the original, they know that he shouldn’t be trusted. But he does behave in a way that is actually very honest. He’s rarely lying to anybody or scheming or trying to con someone into doing something they don’t want to do. He’s actually pretty straightforward, but that’s the line that was fun to play: “Is he going to be more like Ash, or is going to be more like Bishop?” That’s the beauty of this and how our prejudice against synthetics in the Alien world makes us suspicious right off the bat and not trust him. And Andy goes through the same process, so the whole movie works because of that prejudice. You’re like, “Is Andy going to be Bishop? Is he going to be Ash?” So it’s the same with Andy, and hopefully people will get all that and enjoy the journey of these two synthetics together.
What additional tech was used for Rook? Deepfake/AI? CG face replacement?
Metaphysic is the company that did a lot of the work on the enhancements to the puppet. We had a puppet that talked, and it was all based on an Ian Holm headcast that we found. It was made for The Lord of the Rings, and that was the only headcast that exists of Ian Holm. So the Legacy [Effects] guys that did the animatronic started there, and then some shots needed more help from CG for the lip sync and the lines. But there are some others that didn’t. There are some shots where you are literally looking straight at the animatronic. So it was a combination of things, and while I don’t know exactly what they do, I am sure it is a combination of CG and the headscan. There might be some deepfake in the eyes because it’s the best when it comes to creating the likeness of the eyes, but it’s a whole bag of tricks from 1970s and 1980s technology to technology from yesterday.
In the end, Rain decides that Andy’s directive, as programmed by her father, should no longer be what’s best for her; it should be what’s best for them both. Thematically, there are numerous points about how disposable humans are to corporations and where we stand in the greater universe, but is that moment between siblings the whole movie in a nutshell?
I think so. When it comes to that relationship, for sure. Every good story should have a concept at the end where you’re happy for the movie to end there, but then I try to tell you, “Hey, you should have thought about this.” The whole thing is not about bringing Andy back to what he was at the beginning of the movie, but we are basically honoring when she says that he’s her brother. It’s easy to say someone is your brother, but you have to act in consequence.
Synthetics always represent the oppressed minority, particularly in Blade Runner and the worlds of Ridley Scott. So, as a Uruguayan and a bit of an outsider in this world, I saw myself in Andy. When you go work somewhere else like I did in Hollywood, you feel you’re being told, “You’re one of us as long as you make money for us. If it is good for the system, then great. If it’s not, then it’s not really about you.” So that’s me talking too deep into the themes and what the movie represents.
Like I said, when I’m writing, I don’t know why I am writing a certain way, but I can later see why me and my co-writer decided to go there. There’s definitely a lot of commentary on our sensitivity as outsiders and being the minority in Hollywood. The Uruguayans are definitely not the majority in this business. (Laughs.) So it will take me some more time to really process it and look at it and understand exactly why I wrote what I did. Rodo and I try to write from a place of total honesty, and that’s why our movies are always kind of strange when it comes to themes and characters and the positions taken in some arguments. But it’s always very personal.
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Alien: Romulus is now playing in movie theaters.
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