A story of two machines: in the first season of “Alien Earth” | Interviews

The characters in the “Alien” franchise have always fought with identity attacks. Whether it is human beings who try to transcend the limits of their finitude by interstellar trips, or synthetic machines pretending to be humans, there is always a disconnection with the basic identity that pushes the protagonists and the antagonists. “Alien: Earth”, the first television series taking place in the franchise, takes place two years before the original film by Ridley Scott and continues this existential tradition through the experiences of two new entities.

During the first season of eight episodes, which ended Tuesday evening, the showrunner Noah Hawley focused on three advanced beings: hybrids, synths and cyborgs. Sydney Chandler plays the Wendy hybrid while Babou Cesesay plays the only pure cyborg in the series, Morrow. The two are fascinating inverse each other: Wendy is the human consciousness discreetly nestled in an elegant synthetic body, while Morrow carries an awkward robotic arm. The two leave similar trips but arrive at very different destinations.

Morrow, who is a worker faithful at the end of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, said at the start of the series: “It would not be good, to be all machine instead of what I am, the worst parts of a man?” However, at the end of the show, he learned to embrace his humanity and see him as a force. This manifests when he fights with an enemy synthetic named Kirsh (Timothy Olyphant). In their battle, morrow, bloody and bruised but standing above an almost offline Kirsh, says “in the end, man will always win … It is a question of will.”

For Ceesay, the line is a full circle moment for his character. “When you get a character, you want to take them from A to B,” said Ceesay Rogerebert.com“But when I looked at” A “, I saw a man who wants him to be more synthetic than anything else. Will… you can’t play with me. Cesesay also sees the battle between Kirsh and Morrow as part of the broader conversation around the invasive presence of technology in our lives. “I am sure that these are all things that we want to roar with regard to AI at the moment,” he joked, “what Morrow believes that humanity must believe the same thing of ourselves, otherwise we will turn off.

However, while for Morrow, the journey was that of learning to make peace with its human and robotic halves, for Wendy, the trip was reversed. “If you look at Wendy’s movements at the start of the show, she’s more nervous,” said Chandler Rogerebert.com, “She rotates on her chairs, cannot be seated and is easily distracted. It is very childish and human. While Wendy progressed throughout the show, I wanted to play with her silence and her stoic nature when she kissed her side of the machine.” This culminates in a cathartic sequence when Wendy and her hybrid brothers and sisters are locked up by their creator, the Kavalier boy (Samuel Blenkin). In the click of her fingers, Wendy opens the door of the cell, and she and the other hybrids are headed for Kavalier. She says with facetious Kavalier to run, almost sneaking with her hand.

“Throughout the show, Wendy was practiced by these larger forces who said that they had his best interest in mind, when in reality, they exploited his naivety, childhood and body,” said Chandler. “It was fun to work with Sam for this scene. Wendy entered Kavalier’s game, but with this hand gesture, she brought him into hers. It is Wendy’s game now.”

In addition, the tragic arc of Wendy’s story is that, as it gradually becomes disappointed with human beings around it, it reluctantly passes her humanity to do it voluntarily. “When she begins to see cracks in other human beings, whether with her disappointment with her brother or with her mother figure, Lady Sylvia, she no longer wants to be a person,” explains Chandler. “When Wendy lets the machine enter, the tremors are gone. The machines are extremely effective and, above all, care to stay alive, and that is what it adopts in these last moments.”

Cesesay and Chandler both quote how to work on practical sets helped them better understand their characters. Cesesay shared that the glove he had to wear, which acted like his prosthetic arm, was three millimeters tighter than his real arm, and that a little comfort helped to put him in the mind space of Morrow, who always tries to reconcile his flesh and metal. “I consider him analogous to cooking,” said Ceesay. “Even if the team could cgi all my arm, I always want this glove piece because this physical element makes me feel complete. I try to superimpose this feeling in my performances and to see what comes out in the broth.”

Chandler noted that the physical effects – a pleasure through the line she noticed having now worked on projects like “Sugar”, “Pistols” and “Don’t worries”, which also emphasized the sets of real life – stretching it as an actor in a way with which she might not have been so comfortable if everything was CGI. “It makes my job much easier,” she said. “Especially when you act against actors who play creatures, you have something with the weight you work against.” She quotes a moment by working with Cameron Brown, the actor who plays the Xenmorph, in the key moments of episode 3 and in the final. “I really drew it … I had to use my whole body, which increases my heart rate and puts me right away.”

Regarding a season 2 full of hope, Chandler hopes that all future stories explore the emerging relationship between Wendy and the two xenomorphs, which are now widespread on Prodigy Island. While they seemed to respond to Wendy’s commands and conversation, Chandler stressed that the dynamics are not as clear as it seems. “It’s not a pet,” said Chandler, “there is always a factor of fear; It’s not certain, and I think Wendy still does not know the security line to communicate with these xenomorphs. It is something that she and the extraterrestrials walk together. She quotes how hybrids and xenomorphs have had mirror trips throughout this first season, and she displays where they can divert. Wendy and the xenomorphs are both harsh … I want to see what the counterpoup to. »»

Cesesay is curious to know how the more “extraterrestrial” seasons could rely on another line of the franchise: that there is nothing more dangerous for the universe than a corrupt CEO. “The Kavalier boy represents what we all like and fear. We all feel that we need exponential growth to be alive,” he laughs, “but it is a frightening prerogative to have in the fore. Where are these people going to take us?”