Alien (film) - Casting

Casting

For more details on individual characters, see List of characters in the Alien series.

Casting calls and auditions for Alien were held in both New York and London. With only seven human characters in the story, Scott sought to hire strong actors so he could focus most of his energy on the film's visual style. He employed casting director Mary Selway, who had worked with him on The Duellists, to head the casting in the United Kingdom, while Mary Goldberg handled casting in the United States. In developing the story O'Bannon had focused on writing the Alien first, putting off developing the characters for a later draft. He and Shusett had therefore written all of the roles as generic males with a note in the script explicitly stating "The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women." This left Scott, Selway, and Goldberg free to interpret the characters as they liked and to cast accordingly. They wanted the Nostromo's crew to resemble working astronauts in a realistic environment, a concept summed up as "truckers in space". According to Scott, this concept was inspired partly by Star Wars, which deviated from the pristine future often depicted in science fiction films of the time.

The principal cast members of Alien were:

• Bolaji Badejo as The Alien. A Nigerian design student, Badejo was discovered in a bar by a member of the casting team, who put him in touch with Ridley Scott. Scott believed that Badejo, at 7 feet 2 inches (218 cm) and with a slender frame, could portray the Alien and look as if his arms and legs were too long to be real, creating the illusion that there could not possibly be a human being inside the costume. Stuntmen Eddie Powell and Roy Scammell also portrayed the Alien in some scenes.
• Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, the Nostromo's navigator. Cartwright had previous experience in horror and science fiction films, having acted in The Birds (1963) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978). She originally read for the role of Ripley, and was not informed that she had instead been cast as Lambert until she arrived in London for wardrobe. She disliked the character's emotional weakness, but nevertheless accepted the role: "They convinced me that I was the audience's fears; I was a reflection of what the audience is feeling." Cartwright won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
• Ian Holm as Ash, the ship's Science Officer who is revealed to be an android under orders to bring the Alien back to the Nostromo's corporate employers. Holm, a character actor who by 1979 had already been in twenty films, was the most experienced actor cast for Alien.
• John Hurt as Kane, the Executive Officer who becomes the host for the Alien. Hurt was Scott's first choice for the role but was contracted on a film in South Africa during Alien's filming dates, so Jon Finch was cast as Kane instead. However, Finch became ill during the first day of shooting and was diagnosed with severe diabetes, which had also exacerbated a case of bronchitis. Hurt was in London by this time, his South African project having fallen through, and he quickly replaced Finch. His performance earned him a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
• Yaphet Kotto as Parker, the Chief Engineer. Kotto, an African American, was chosen partly to add diversity to the cast and give the Nostromo crew an international flavor. Kotto was sent a script off the back of his recent success with Live and Let Die, although it was some time and deliberation between Kotto and his agent before he was offered the part.
• Tom Skerritt as Dallas, the Captain of the Nostromo. Skerritt had been approached early in the film's development but declined as it did not yet have a director and had a very low budget. Later, when Scott was attached as director and the budget had been doubled, Skerritt accepted the role of Dallas.
• Harry Dean Stanton as Brett, the Engineering Technician. Stanton's first words to Scott during his audition were "I don't like sci fi or monster movies." Scott was amused and convinced Stanton to take the role after reassuring him that Alien would actually be a thriller more akin to Ten Little Indians.
• Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the warrant officer aboard the Nostromo. The decision to make the lead character a woman was made by Giler and Hill, who felt this would help Alien stand out in the otherwise male-dominated genre of science fiction. Weaver, who had Broadway experience but was relatively unknown in film, impressed Scott, Giler, and Hill with her audition. She was the last actor to be cast for the film, and performed most of her screen tests in-studio as the sets were being built. The role of Ripley was Weaver's first leading role in a motion picture, and earned her nominations for a Saturn Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role.

To assist the actors in preparing for their roles, Ridley Scott wrote several pages of backstory for each character explaining their histories. He filmed many of their rehearsals in order to capture spontaneity and improvisation, and tensions between some of the cast members, particularly towards the less-experienced Weaver, translated convincingly on film as tension between their respective characters.

Film critic Roger Ebert notes that the actors in Alien were older than was typical in thriller films at the time, which helped make the characters more convincing:

None of them were particularly young. Tom Skerritt, the captain, was 46, Hurt was 39 but looked older, Holm was 48, Harry Dean Stanton was 53, Yaphet Kotto was 42, and only Veronica Cartwright at 29 and Weaver at 30 were in the age range of the usual thriller cast. Many recent action pictures have improbably young actors cast as key roles or sidekicks, but by skewing older, Alien achieves a certain texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers but workers, hired by a company to return 20 million tons of ore to Earth.

David McIntee, author of Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films, notes that part of the film's effectiveness in frightening viewers "comes from the fact that the audience can all identify with the characters...Everyone aboard the Nostromo is a normal, everyday, working Joe just like the rest of us. They just happen to live and work in the future."