(^082) W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K
|
COMPLETE GUIDE
ALIEN
“RIDLEY SAID: ‘I’VE FOUND THE ACTOR, SHE’S SO
GOOD AND I NEED HER!’”
ROGER CHRISTIANsimilar technique of intricately assembling and
dressing aircraft scrap components for the
crew’s doomed mining vessel.
“Ridley said: ‘It’s a space truck – I need that
look!’” recalls Christian to SciFiNow, who as
an art director assisted production designer
Michael Seymour on Alien, “When I came
on-board there was no dressing. There was a
snake-like structure of the Nostromo going over
two stages. Ridley needed that to do all those
amazing tracks in the opening sequence and to
get that claustrophobia.”
The indestructible malevolence and
believability of the titular humanoid threat was
another milestone. Inspired by H R Giger’s
Necronomicon (after meeting the Swiss artist
on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s aborted Dune),
Dan O’Bannon was instrumental in introducing
Scott to this strange and deeply visceral
biomechanical world.
Giger wanted to redesign the alien but Scott
insisted that the artist’s 1976 painting Necronom
IV, with all its haunting psychosexual beauty
and subconscious Freudian power was a
perfect design basis for the creature. Giger also
created the iconic alien egg, the Facehugger,
Chestburster, along with the derelict spacecraft
and the ominous Space Jockey.“He was supposed to come for two weeks but
ended up staying for the entire shoot,” continues
Roger Christian. “Michael Seymour built him a
structure on one of the stages and I fi lled it with
bones and Giger sculpted the alien planet in
miniature using those bones. I got him a lot of
modeling clay and he was just very quiet and
dedicated. He sculpted all the time and when the
stage was built he would go in with airbrushes
and sculpt and spray-paint everything. Giger
was really involved in that world.”
Not that the human characters in the story
were sidelined. Making up the ‘truckers in space’
ensemble were a bunch of character actors
that included Veronica Cartwright as navigator
Lambert. “It bothered me that the character was
so weepy all the time. But in a weird way that
character was the audience and the way they
were feeling; they wanted to get out of there
too!” she tells SciFiNow.
Conversely, Cartwright had believed she was
cast in the coveted role of Ripley. “Originally
that was the only part I ever read for so I
assumed that was the part I had. I hadn’t
even read the script from the point of view
of Lambert.”
Ridley Scott knew intuitively when he met the
young, unknown Sigourney Weaver that shewas right for the (gender neutral) role of warrant
offi cer Ripley, who would ultimately become a
new breed of screen heroine. However, 20th
Century Fox was fi xated on an established
star for the part. “Ridley said: ‘I’ve found the
actor, she’s so good and I need her!’ so they
said: ‘We’ll screen-test her and take a look,’”
remembers Christian. “Ridley wisely didn’t want
to do the usual screen-test with a white wall
and a plant, with the actor standing there doing
their lines so he said to me: ‘Can you build me
a piece of the Nostromo corridor and I’ll put her
in action?’ I quickly got a lot of scrap brought in
and built the corridor and it’s there in that screen
test that you see the beginnings of Alien.”
The fi lmmaker purposely snubbed his cast
to coax stronger, more realistically aggravated
performances from them. “Ridley wasn’t giving
the actors many instructions, as he wanted them
to be a bit nervous and isolated, so Sigourney
would always come to me,” Christian continues.
“I was onset the entire time during the shoot and
she just got my trust. I always said, ‘you look
great Sigourney – you’re already looking like
someone who could be in command of that ship,
you’ve got that strength to you!’.”
“We were all a little aggregated with one
another,” adds Cartwright. “After Dallas died(^082) W W W. S C I FI N OW.CO.U K
|
COMPLETE GUIDE
ALIEN
“RIDLEY SAID: ‘I’VE FOUND THE ACTOR, SHE’S SO
GOOD AND I NEED HER!’”
ROGER CHRISTIANsimilar technique of intricately assembling and
dressing aircraft scrap components for the
crew’s doomed mining vessel.
“Ridley said: ‘It’s a space truck – I need that
look!’” recalls Christian to SciFiNow, who as
an art director assisted production designer
Michael Seymour on Alien, “When I came
on-board there was no dressing. There was a
snake-like structure of the Nostromo going over
two stages. Ridley needed that to do all those
amazing tracks in the opening sequence and to
get that claustrophobia.”
The indestructible malevolence and
believability of the titular humanoid threat was
another milestone. Inspired by H R Giger’s
Necronomicon (after meeting the Swiss artist
on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s aborted Dune),
Dan O’Bannon was instrumental in introducing
Scott to this strange and deeply visceral
biomechanical world.
Giger wanted to redesign the alien but Scott
insisted that the artist’s 1976 painting Necronom
IV, with all its haunting psychosexual beauty
and subconscious Freudian power was a
perfect design basis for the creature. Giger also
created the iconic alien egg, the Facehugger,
Chestburster, along with the derelict spacecraft
and the ominous Space Jockey.
“He was supposed to come for two weeks but
ended up staying for the entire shoot,” continues
Roger Christian. “Michael Seymour built him a
structure on one of the stages and I fi lled it with
bones and Giger sculpted the alien planet in
miniature using those bones. I got him a lot of
modeling clay and he was just very quiet and
dedicated. He sculpted all the time and when the
stage was built he would go in with airbrushes
and sculpt and spray-paint everything. Giger
was really involved in that world.”
Not that the human characters in the story
were sidelined. Making up the ‘truckers in space’
ensemble were a bunch of character actors
that included Veronica Cartwright as navigator
Lambert. “It bothered me that the character was
so weepy all the time. But in a weird way that
character was the audience and the way they
were feeling; they wanted to get out of there
too!” she tells SciFiNow.
Conversely, Cartwright had believed she was
cast in the coveted role of Ripley. “Originally
that was the only part I ever read for so I
assumed that was the part I had. I hadn’t
even read the script from the point of view
of Lambert.”
Ridley Scott knew intuitively when he met the
young, unknown Sigourney Weaver that shewas right for the (gender neutral) role of warrant
offi cer Ripley, who would ultimately become a
new breed of screen heroine. However, 20th
Century Fox was fi xated on an established
star for the part. “Ridley said: ‘I’ve found the
actor, she’s so good and I need her!’ so they
said: ‘We’ll screen-test her and take a look,’”
remembers Christian. “Ridley wisely didn’t want
to do the usual screen-test with a white wall
and a plant, with the actor standing there doing
their lines so he said to me: ‘Can you build me
a piece of the Nostromo corridor and I’ll put her
in action?’ I quickly got a lot of scrap brought in
and built the corridor and it’s there in that screen
test that you see the beginnings of Alien.”
The fi lmmaker purposely snubbed his cast
to coax stronger, more realistically aggravated
performances from them. “Ridley wasn’t giving
the actors many instructions, as he wanted them
to be a bit nervous and isolated, so Sigourney
would always come to me,” Christian continues.
“I was onset the entire time during the shoot and
she just got my trust. I always said, ‘you look
great Sigourney – you’re already looking like
someone who could be in command of that ship,
you’ve got that strength to you!’.”
“We were all a little aggregated with one
another,” adds Cartwright. “After Dallas died