As the FX/Disney+ series Alien: Earth, comes into dock, British actor Alex Lawther tells us about playing a medic called Hermit, which is handy, given that a spaceship crash lands, and the contents inside won’t exactly delight people who enjoy living life without an alien clasped to their face. As one of the shows leads, here Lawther pulls back the curtain (a bit), to discuss synthetic humans, monsters and someone called Wendy.
Left Shirt & waistcoat Ann Demeulemeester
Right Full look Prada
So, can you give us a glimpse of what to expect from this series? So far, we know that there is a human-robot hybrid called Wendy and a team investigating a ship that crashes on Earth carrying different alien lifeforms, including, maybe, the Xenomorph!
Noah has taken the original source material and the world we recognise from the first alien film, the same textures, a shared aesthetic, similar stakes… and has let his imagination run quite wild with it. There are monsters, yes, and synthetic humans! And by really spending time with these extra-human creatures, an exploration as to where lies the distinction is between Alien and Human…
You play a soldier named Hermit, tell us more about him, and did you go back and study any previous performances from the movies before playing him, or did you want to make him your own?
Hermit is a medic, a caregiver. He is the sibling of the person now called Wendy. When she was a child in a human body she had a different name. He has been separated from her and his through line, his part in the story, is wrapped up in their reunion, but also the difficulty of that reunion, the tensions it throws up - where to put care when that care is no longer needed, no longer fits.
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Did you have to get into the gym for the physical side of the role?
I did! I loved it. Not to say I put on a lot of muscle, I am a congenitally skinny person, but it was a nice way of staying in my body over the course of filming over six months.
The performance of the Alien varies from film to film and director to director, and with this being a TV series, did you find it difficult to prepare for the role, or were you given specifics early on about what they needed from your performance?
I found the playing of Hermit to be crystallised on my first day on set with Sydney Chandler, who plays Wendy. Hermit exists in relation to Wendy, in story terms…and maybe in his own understanding of himself. So finally, being on set with Syd, I remember feeling that things fell into place, and it became clear what I was there to play.
I’m curious to know if the series will be elevated using practical effects and special effects? And speaking of practical effects versus digital, I imagine as an actor that it must be helpful to react to something that is physically there? Did you get to play with any remote-controlled facehuggers or animatronic xenomorphs?
I think a bit of both. Everything we could do practically we did. There are practical effects that get enhanced in the edit, by VFX. But when you see a Xeno on screen, it was really there in camera… namely a Kiwi called Cam, inside a rubber Xeno suit.
Left Shirt, waistcoat and pants Ann Demeulemeester, shoes Jimmy Choo
Right Full look Maison Margiela
With the Alien movies, it’s often a survival story from beginning to end, so given this is a TV series, how will the story play out across 8 episodes? I imagine there will be a deeper dive into the characters and their backstories.
We get to spend eight hours with these characters, so you’re right we dive deeply! I think that’s the advantage television has, as we can do the horror sci-fi thing, and (hopefully!) do it well, and spend time with the implicit questions that horror and sci fi bring up - questions that a 90-minute film doesn’t have the time to sit with. There are Aliens…yes...but what does that mean for humanity, for human-ness?
For many Alien fans out there, their first encounter with the movie left an indelible mark on their memory. What was your entry point for the franchise and were you a horror / sci fi fan before signing on to this project?
I remember watching the first Alien film as a teenager. And thinking it was beautiful and strange and scary. And oddly vividly I remember Hurt in the leotard he gets operated in. And horror films, that my best friend would bring over, that my parents wouldn’t have let me watch if they’d have known. Recently, I’ve been reading Ursula K Le Guin - writing as early as the 60s - I’ve just finished The Left Hand of Darkness; it’s extraordinary, and using science fiction set on other planets to ask radical questions about what we’re doing on our own.
Which of all the characters you’ve played both on screen and stage, have resonated with you most, or awakened parts of yourself?
I had the opportunity to play Hamlet in New York a few years ago. It’s a play that blows your head off as an actor getting to play it. I feel really lucky to have those words sit in me somewhere.
Left Full look Maison Margiela
Right Shirt, waistcoat Ann Demeulemeester
You’re also appearing in the upcoming six-part TV series based on the award-winning, bestselling novel Leonard and Hungry Paul. It’s a complete switch from killer extraterrestrials to board-gaming friends and suburban life. What can you say about it?
It’s stars Laurie Kynaston and Jamie-Lee O’Donnell - what a total joy working with these two. Laurie, I’ve known and loved for years, and Jamie Lee I’ve admired from afar! If you get a chance to read the book that the series was borne from, it’s so gentle, and unassuming, in a way that does not feel part of a Western tradition - I think the author Rónán is interested in the Japanese tradition of Kishōtenketsu - a narrative does not center conflict as part of its structure. It feels like a welcome far cry from the belly of the beast of Alien.
It’s important as an actor to spread your wings a bit and try new things. Do you know now when a script comes in that you’ve mined that world and want to try things from a different perspective, or do you still wait for the proposition and then imagine what could be?
I just love good writing. I think that’s all I can rely on. You try not to repeat yourself. But there’s only so much you can control what people will have you in mind for, as an actor. So I think it’s about being sensitive to what the story is on paper - and then a sensitivity to what the director is proposing in having you take part in telling that story with them.
You made your writing and directing film debut in 2023 with the film, “For people in trouble”, and you appeared in the stage play, The Jungle, at the Playhouse Theatre – both were examples of you using your platform to inspire people to think more inter-connectedly and communally and believe in a better world. Are you writing or collaborating on any new projects?
Ah thanks for mentioning those. I then made another film, Rhoda, with Emma D’Arcy, this time starring Juliet Stevenson. I can’t believe my fortune in getting to make something with those two. Rhoda is on its festival run at the moment, we premiered at LFF and then Palm Springs in the US, and I’m developing my first feature, eek. With The Jungle, it’s interesting, the play does end with a feeling of interconnectedness, I agree, but the camp is destroyed and then we hear from a volunteer on the ground at the (then) present day - and things have gotten worse. So…yes, there is urgency to believing in a better world, but there are equal parts a need to be clear sighted as to the state we’re in. Maybe one thing necessitates the other. And working with actors like Juliet and Emma I have hope - they are as engaged in the world as they are committed as artists - again maybe one thing necessitates the other.
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Photography by Jason Hetherington
Fashion by Steven Huang
EIC Michael Marson
Grooming by Petra Sellge at The Wall Group using R+Co
Casting by Imagemachine cs
Photographer’s assistant Alfie Bungay
Stylist’s assistant Gara Böhm
