Full disclosure: I love “Alien: Earth.” As a superfan of the “Alien” franchise, it’s pretty much the sci-fi show of my dreams, and I said as much in my glowing “Alien: Earth” review.
Naturally, when offered the chance to sit down with two of the show’s biggest stars, Babou Ceesay and Samuel Blenkin, I leaped at the opportunity with enough enthusiasm to make a Xenomorph jump. I was particularly thrilled to speak to Ceesay and Blenkin, as their compelling characters were the standout roles in the six episodes I’ve seen to date.
Ceesay plays Morrow, a Weyland-Yutani cyborg, obsessed with reclaiming the Xenomorph specimens taken by the rival Prodigy corporation. While Blenkin plays the Boy Kavalier, the CEO of Prodigy, a character who Blenkin describes as having an ego “bigger than Planet Earth.”
While the likes of Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant and Alex Lawther headline the show (and for the record, all three are also fantastic in their roles), throughout “Alien: Earth,” my attention was always drawn to Morrow and Boy Kavalier, and their individual arcs totally hooked me.
So when I sat down to talk to Babou Ceesay and Samuel Blenkin during a recent roundtable discussion, I was bursting with questions. Here’s what we chatted about.
Crafting complex and compelling characters
Right off the bat, I wanted to dig into the characters of Morrow and Boy, and to understand what it was about these roles that stood out when Ceesay and Blenkin first read the scripts.
“I love my role and I love Sam’s role. You know, there are two characters that are complex and ambiguous and contradictory. It’s not often you get a chance to sink your teeth into material like this,” explained Ceesay.
For me, it was the size of the ego that I got to portray; I don't normally get a chance to inhabit somebody whose ego is bigger than Planet Earth itself,” Blenkin told me. “That was a very, very exciting prospect for me playing somebody with that much mad ego.”
Blenkin also pointed out how much he enjoyed Ceesay’s work as Morrow: “There are contradictions at the heart of those characters. I just find Morrow’s quest to be more than human, but unable to go beyond his human body, it's just classic Noah [Hawley]. If you get to push and pull against those two things, it's very satisfying to turn up to work every day.”
Stepping onto the set of ‘Alien: Earth’
As somebody who ranks 1979’s “Alien” as their favorite movie of all time, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I was more than a little bit jealous of the cast getting to step onto the show’s practical sets that look straight out of the very first Xenomorph’s big screen appearance.
Talking about their reaction to seeing the incredible sets for the first time, Ceesay said, “Walking onto the set of the Maginot, and of course, it's the Nostromo, you can't help it but get goose bumps running down your body, just chills, even as I'm saying it now, but everybody, including Noah, became a kid.”
You're walking around, and you're touching things, as you're pressing buttons and doors are sliding open and you're walking into other rooms, and after a very short space of time, you forget you're in a studio. You feel like you're on a ship.”
“It wasn't just little sets that they needed for specific shots. They just made the whole thing, and the level of detail was insane,” added Blenkin.
Turning the world of ‘Alien’ into a TV show
One of my slight concerns ahead of watching “Alien: Earth” for myself was that it would be merely an “Alien” movie stretched over a longer runtime.
It is fair to say that fear was quickly alleviated within the first episode, so I wanted to ask Ceesay and Blenkin how they believe “Earth” sets itself apart from the numerous feature films that have come before it.
“Noah has an amazing ability to write really compelling character arcs and storylines that can expand,” explained Blenkin. “I think he's a really great writer in the sense of his ability to continually up the stakes or develop a situation. I think that's kind of just what great storytelling is made up of. You get one situation, and then it develops into this and what happens next?”
“It definitely doesn't feel like an eight-hour-long Alien movie,” said Ceesay. “It feels like its own thing. And of course, that's scary. You don't know if that's going to land, but then when people start to tell you, ‘Hey, we're enjoying this,’ you go, okay, good. We're on the right track.”
Fans won’t want to miss this episode
Finally, and with my allotted time rapidly running out, I was eager to ask Ceesay and Blenkin which episode they couldn’t wait for fans to watch in the weeks ahead. And the answer was surprisingly unanimous.
“I'm interested to see how [fans] respond to episode five,” said Ceesay. “Yeah, it's exceptionally good,” added Blenkin, also noting that “episode eight is pretty mental.”
This final word certainly got me very excited to see the conclusion of the series for myself. But with episodes rolling out weekly starting August 12 on FX and Hulu (or Disney Plus in the U.K.), we’ve got a little while yet until we see exactly how “mental” things get in the closing chapter.
More from Tom's Guide
- How to watch 'Alien: Earth' online
- ‘Alien Earth’ review: The best new show of the year
- Noah Hawley has a multi-season vision for 'Alien: Earth'
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