'Alien: Earth' episode 3: Inside the big Xenomorph fight
Despite its lineup of parasitic extraterrestrials, rival corporations, and jaw-dropping action sequences, Noah Hawley's FX series Alien: Earth is a story about humanity — with a pair of long-lost siblings at its core.
Marcy (Sydney Chandler) and Joe (Alex Lawther) are known, respectively, as Wendy (after the Peter Pan matriarch) and Hermit (for their father's army callsign). The latter is a human, the former a hybrid, a pair who find themselves reconnected through an Ice Age in-joke, then come face-to-face in the ruins of a crashed Weyland-Yutani spaceship.
Mashable sat down with Chandler and Lawther to unpack their Alien: Earth characters, the major Xenomorph fight in episode 3, and how voice notes helped build their sibling bond.
Sydney Chandler and Alex Lawther bonded through voice notes and ANOHNI
Forming this bond between brother and sister saw Lawther looking to music to establish their connection, with The End of the F***ing World actor sending ANOHNI and the Johnsons' 2005 heartbreaker, "You Are My Sister," to Chandler.
"That song by ANOHNI, I'm not sure it's about a literal biological sibling relationship; it's about her sisters, I imagine her queer sisters. But it speaks to an immense love, an immense, familial bond, and about one person looking after the other when it's nighttime and there's scary things in the shadows," Lawther tells Mashable. "It just makes me cry every time. Even just thinking of that song makes me cry."
Another platform for the actors to establish their shared history as siblings? Chandler and Lawther would send voice notes back and forth to each other, initially as themselves, then testing a few as their characters Joe and Marcy during pre-production.
"I actually listened through, it was really interesting," Chandler tells Mashable. "It kind of just started because we had a few back and forth as us, and then I remember when I was like, 'Do you remember that night when Dad...' and then you [Lawther] would add on to it. None of that stuff came up specifically for me when working, but having that texture and hearing your voice and speaking to you in that way gave me an immediate history with you. And we had a secret, because no one else had that. No one else knew those pieces."
Inside the epic Xenomorph fight in episode 3
One of the more outstanding action sequences in Alien: Earth lies in episode 3, when Joe and Marcy go head-to-head with the dreaded Xenomorph in the crumbling tower's parking garage. Working closely with the Alien: Earth stunt team and a lot of KY Jelly, the sequence saw Chandler and Lawther in few weeks of night shoots — and giving it their all.
"I felt like I ran a marathon," says Chandler.
"We're so over enthusiastic," agrees Lawther. "Like, we would be giving 110 percent when really we could be doing 70."
"We were like, we want to be the A+ students," says Chandler. "My favorite days on set, too, we'd be doing pushups or jumping jacks or running in place really fast."
In one of the most air-punching moments of the sequence, Marcy uses a massive hook to drag the Xenomorph off her brother and into an elevator to take care of it once and for all. Chandler worked closely with her stunt double, Mickey Facchinello to bring the nail-biting sequence to life.
"When you have the hook in your hand, it's so badass," Lawther tells Chandler. "But also that sequence that you do, it's so good. I remember Mickey, who was your stunt double, and also doing some stunt training with us all, showing you and you just picking it up and doing it all."
"She was incredible. Mickey is like...I have so much love for her. Really incredible stunt. The whole stunt team nailed it," adds Chandler.
"The slow-mo did a lot of work for me, to be honest. Maybe I should just always be in slow-mo."
Lawther's character Joe also gets multiple moments of slow-motion action in the series, usually featuring the Xenomorph leaping in terrifying motion behind him or at him — in the stairwell in episode 1, in the apartment in episode 2, and in the garage in episode 3.
"Everything looks great in slow-mo, doesn't it? Like, even like just walking into a room and turning your head something looks really cool," says Lawther. "So the slow-mo did a lot of work for me, to be honest. Maybe I should just always be in slow-mo."
Alien: Earth episodes drop weekly on Hulu and FX at 8pm E.T. on Tuesdays.
Topics Alien: Earth
Shannon Connellan is Mashable's UK Editor based in London, formerly Mashable's Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives in the Creel House. A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror.
