How and Why Alien: Romulus‘ Surprise Cameo Happened

Alien: Romulus is now in theaters and despite generally positive reviews and a solid opening weekend, one story seems to be dominating the discussion over the rest. It’s about a classic character who shows up, played by an actor who passed away in 2020. And over the past few days, co-writer and director Fede Alvarez, as well as producer Ridley Scott, have explained how and why the choice was made.

In Romulus, Rain and her friends encounter a synthetic being named Rook who looks like actor Ian Holm. Holm played Ash, the turncoat synthetic, in the original Alien, so seeing another character who looks just like him in this era after Alien makes sense. He is, after all, just a robot. One that, unlike every other similar character in the franchise, never got to return. That’s where the reasoning begins.

“It was out of fairness in a way,” Alvarez told Variety. “I felt it was so unfair that Lance Henriksen made many appearances and Michael Fassbender. And I felt it was crazy that Ian Holm was never back.” Holm, however, passed away in 2020 so to bring him back caused more than a few challenges.

“Talking with Ridley, both of us came up with this idea that what if it has the likeness of Ian Holm—which is different from being Ian Holm or even being Ash,” Alvarez said. “We would’ve never dared to reproduce that because you cannot reproduce with any technology, the talent of an actor. You can never capture the nuance of someone’s performance and their choices. So we designed a different character, but it shares the same likeness.”

Alvarez approached Holm’s family, including his widow Sophie de Stempel, and they were not just okay with it, they welcomed it. “His widow told me that Ian felt, in the last 10 years of his life, Hollywood turned a cold shoulder to him and that he didn’t get many offers,” Alvarez said. “And she said he would have loved to be invited back into Alien, because he loved Ridley and he loved that franchise.”

To accomplish the feat, an animatronic creation with Holm’s face was on-set operated by nearby puppeteers. Actor Daniel Betts was also there to provide the voice and specific facial movements, which were then duplicated by visual effects in post-production (Alvarez said mostly it was the eyes and mouth). Then, yes, an AI was used to generate a voice that sounded closer to Holm’s.

“We’re not bringing someone back to life and saying, ‘Ian would have done it that way,’” the director told the Los Angeles Times. “He would have obviously done it differently. We had an actor who was on the set, who worked on the dialogue, who worked with the actors. It’s not like we skipped hiring an actor.”

So Holm was back because it made sense in the story and it was a nice tribute—and it was accomplished by using a combination of digital and practical effects. All of which was much, much more involved than the alternative, which is why Alvarez thinks it should only happen in certain situations.

“It’s so much more expensive to do it the way we did it—it’s much cheaper to just hire an actor,” Alvarez said. “Doing it this way requires a team of so many people and so many parts to get it done that it’s never going to be really convenient.”

Alien: Romulus is now in theaters.

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