Huge thanks to our friend Thibaut Claudel, Writer & Narrative Designer of Aliens: Dark Descent, for his help translating this French interview into English. This article originally appears in French in Cinemateaser’s summer 2024 issue.
FEDE ALVAREZ interview
Since the prequels didn't satisfy many people, ALIEN tries to get back to what it does best: the horror of a closed-door space movie set in corridors contaminated by a large, deadly bug. At the helm is Fede Alvarez, whose since EVIL DEAD has proven that he excels in gory spectacles that test the viewer's resistance. After seeing an (impressive) part of his ROMULUS, we tried to find out what it was like for him to direct an ALIEN.
BY AURÉLIEN ALLIN
ALIEN: ROMULUS is the story of a double return to roots. Firstly, for the franchise which, after the fourth ALIEN: RESURRECTION directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet Jeunet in 1997, had been buried in opuses unworthy of its stature (the two ALIEN VS PREDATOR), followed by prequels too cerebral, too messy and too clumsy to fully convince (PROMETHEUS and COVENANT). Then for director Fede Alvarez who, after the great artistic and commercial successes of EVIL DEAD and DON'T BREATHE, had gone astray in THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB, a flimsy techno-thriller - despite the visual talent he brought to it. A resounding failure that kept him away from the silver screen for six years and, he admits, also wore down his desire to make films. This Uruguayan, invited to Hollywood by Sam Raimi after an outstanding short film, ATAQUE DE PÁNICO, now dreamed of nothing more than directing an ALIEN. A dream he fulfilled after selling this idea to Ridley Scott: to place ROMULUS between ALIEN and ALIENS, to return to that futuristic yet primitive, industrial and rugged world, made up of miners and rough-hewn soldiers in space, suddenly confronted by creatures whose refinement is entirely devoted to death. And so it is that ALIEN, after almost three decades of wandering in search of a new identity, is reborn embracing the one he was born with. ALIEN: ROMULUS follows a crew of underage colonists dock at a Weyland-Yutani laboratory station, where they discover... We won't bore you with the details. An opportunity for Fede Alvarez to rediscover the violently dry and/or furiously gory spirit of his first two films, and to rekindle rekindle the sacred fire within him. In June, he came to Paris to present some fifteen minutes of ROMULUS, with Face Huggers stalking in packs like spiders on speed,
cocoons like murderous vaginas, and chest-busting seen through X-rays. ALIEN: ROMULUS seems to vibrate generously with the very primal pleasure of enjoying dolorism and dread. No doubt because Alvarez, while he won't be selling anyone the untenable 'CGI-free film' promotional spiel, has nonetheless done his utmost to keep ROMULUS organic, using a maximum of practical effects, animatronic creatures animatronic creatures and vast, solidly-built sets. Will this finally restore the shine to a saga which, in the past, shone by revealing or imposing future greats? We hope so. While we wait for the final verdict, we spoke to Fede Alvarez about his link to pre-existing class struggle, phallic symbols and mise en scène.
Aurélien: Three of your films are set in pre-existing universes. How do you explain this?
Fede Alvarez: Maybe I should think more strategically about my choices! (Laughs.) But the only thing I can do is jump in when I have a strong feeling that there's a project I really want to realize. EVIL DEAD was my first film. At the time, it was the first thing I heard about
that I found exciting. Really exciting. So I did it. After that, we made DON'T BREATHE - and then DON'T BREATHE 2, which I didn't direct, but co-wrote and co-produced. I remember, just after DON'T BREATHE, I didn't want to... (He pauses). I'd just made two big hits, which had more than they cost and, as you know, I'm from Uruguay. My upbringing revolved around the idea of always keeping your ego in check - and if you don't, your friends and family will take care of it for you! (Laughs.) So I said to myself: 'I don't want to believe that there's anything special about what I do. I just want to work.' Because for me, filmmaking is a profession - some people make shoes, others make films. It's a craft that you have to practice yourself. This way of thinking got to the point where, when someone approached me to adapt a book from the 'Millennium' series, I agreed immediately. And after I'd done it, it became clear to me that I shouldn't have done it, and that I'd have to think twice before embarking on a project that didn't suit me. It almost made me want to stop everything, because [on this film] I had been surrounded by too many people for whom films are not a religion. For them, it was just another film. After that, I was done, heartbroken, so to speak. Then came Covid - nobody was going to make films for a while, obviously. In order for me to decide to go back to directing, to make it really worthwhile, I knew that I had to be really passionate about a project, and that I had to believe in it. To tell the truth, I wasn't even interested in the idea of creating something new. I told everyone that the only thing that really got me going was ALIEN. That's how it happened, and I can see the connection with the fact that I've already directed licensed films, but... I just go with the flow. That's about it. Maybe I should inject more intellect into it but my decision-making is always emotional first.
A: Is there also a very special pleasure to have in seizing a world with its rules and codes - some to be respected, others to be subverted?
F: Oh yes, definitely! You know, filmmakers have always wanted to summon into their work the traces of past films they've loved. Not in the early days of cinema, because there weren't many films in existence. But from the moment cinema became this institution, the snake began to bite its own tail.Today, someone told me that ROMULUS looked like it had been inspired by an ALIEN video game that had been inspired by the films. We're in that cycle now. It's strange, but it's true. I had this discussion with Sam Raimi: he told me that he had wanted to adapt the comic 'The Phantom' but hadn't managed to get the rights, so he'd had to create his own thing, so he wrote DARKMAN .There are many such stories!
A: Starting with STAR WARS - Lucas wanted to adapt 'Flash Gordon'...
F: Exactly! There's a huge difference today: filmmakers still have the same ambition, except that the industry has it too. So that makes things easier. Even if I can assure you that just because you say 'I want to make ALIEN', they don't give you ALIEN.(laughs.) But this movement is historic. Earlier, I was talking about my influences with one of your colleagues. For me, the main influences are films you watch before you're 12 - they usually stay with you for life. In my case, it's easy because as a child I had three VHSs at home, which I watched over and over again. Everything, almost everything I know about cinema comes from these three films: MOBY DICK by JohnHuston, FRANKENSTEIN JUNIOR by Mel Brooks and SCARAMOUCHE by George Sidney. Your colleague asked me if I didn't want to make films like these, original films. I agreed. Then he left, and a few minutes later I went to see him to tell him that, in fact, these three films weren't original: SCARAMOUCHE is a remake of a 1923 film of the same name (by Rex Ingram, ed.), 'Moby Dick' had already been adapted before John Huston (notably by Lloyd Bacon in 1930, ed.).FRANKENSTEIN JUNIOR, it must have been the tenth or fifteenth FRANKENSTEIN, except that it was a comedy! You see? That's Hollywood. Having said that, it's true today I'm very keen to write an original script - and that's what my co-writer (Rodo Sayagues) and I are going to do, after ROMULUS.
A: The first ALIEN was, at its heart, a story of class struggle. In ROMULUS, you feature workers. Did you consciously desire to write a blue-collar story and inject the film with some kind of social commentary?
F: Yes. But I can't tell you exactly what the film's about, for fear of spoiling. You'll know when you see it in its entirety. Because imagine it's 1979 and I've directed the first ALIEN. You ask me about class struggle, and I tell you, indeed, the film is about that, and in particular about how people realize that corporations are being shitty to them and are only interested in their own profit. Back then, this was a radical idea. Today, it's not: we all know it! (Laughs.) If we'd discussed all this back in 1979, it would have spoiled the film's ending. It's the same here: I can't tell you what ROMULUS is about, but it's about the zeitgeist.That said, if I want to be an honest filmmaker, I have to understand why a film really works, and not get carried away by the intellectual dimension of the subject. Let me explain. With James Cameron, I once discussed TERMINATOR 2. I told him how it was a father-son story, with the T-800 assuming the position of surrogate father to John Connor, and so on. And he said: 'Yes but... it's actually a movie about guns'.I was astonished, but... think again. In the mind of the teenagers we were when we saw this film: the sound of the Beretta, absolutely unique, that never sounded like this; the image of Arnold swinging his shotgun around his finger to reload it; and then, it's an escalation, T2: gun against bigger gun, a weapon against a bigger weapon, and so on. It's a fetish! That's what makes it work. We all want to fixate on the intellectual part of films, and we neglect the crucial aspect that makes a film work, the one you can't take away. Take away the xenomorph and you no longer have ALIEN, you have something else. Recently, I showed MATRIX to my son because he was finally old enough to understand it. I presented it to him from an intellectual point of view, what it's about and so on. His reaction after watching it? ‘Yes, it's great. It's a kung fu movie!' He's right! That's what makes MATRIX so effective! It was the first time Americans and much of the rest of the world had seen a film movie that took up the Hong Kong way of doing action, with tethers. Except that you put it like that, it sounds silly. So we all try to raise the bar, to talk about it in a more sophisticated way. Of course, MATRIX is much more than that. But if you try to do MATRIX without the kung fu and the fighting, you're betraying its essence. So, to come back to your question: yes, there's this blue-collar dimension to ROMULUS but the part I didn't want to overlook was what made ALIEN in 1979 had such an impact on people - the shock, the violence, the dread. Of course, ROMULUS can’t be quite like that, because there are elements in it that are now too familiar for it to be. But if you're young, or if you've never seen an ALIEN, it could be. The aim is for it to generate an intense cinematic experience. I really wanted to be honest and not get too obsessed with the rest. Because otherwise, you know how it is: some films privilege intellect and sophistication over everything else.
A: I understand your argument, but it's also true that films interact with their time and that this creates a purpose - even an unconscious one. For For example, there has always been a symbolic sexual dimension in ALIEN - the hollowness, phallic shapes and so on. When you make ROMULUS in a post-MeToo, you can't ignore it...
F: Really, I try not to think about these resonances. All that could do is scare me and paralyze me! It would make me doubt every decision I make. I have absolutely no control over how people will interpret ROMULUS. All I can do is be faithful to the spirit of the original. But yes, as it happens the symbolism of H.R. Giger's work was very feminist. In the first ALIEN, the Face Hugger is a vagina that violates a man's face. These images
freed themselves from a lot of taboos. And I think the effect is the same today. It's because, in the best-case scenario, most people won't even see it. And besides, we shouldn't be able to explain all this too categorically. In ALIEN, it's all very subtle, in the end. But if you go back to Giger's art, it becomes obvious. Of course, they went to this guy to design these creatures! Giger was rejected for a large part of his career by the art community and the press because his work was deemed pornographic. But when you look at ALIEN, things aren't so apparent. Your subconscious sees it. It attacks you without you even knowing it. And that's why audiences enjoy it. I hope it will be the same in ROMULUS. People have to ask themselves: 'Is this what I think I'm seeing? But in the context of the scene, it can't be a distraction.
A: How do you approach directing?
F: I don't rehearse much because I want to keep things fresh for the shoot. Rehearsals can help, but on a film like ROMULUS, which isn't text-driven, you wouldn't get much out of it, I think. The actors can ask me questions about their characters, about anything that isn't verbalized in the script. I don't usually do storyboards either, except in very technical cases.
I like to arrive in the morning and walk around the set, so that I can walk around them. I start by choreographing the action. I give the actors a fair amount of freedom in terms of their reactions and movements, and we check technical factors - 'Don't go there, because I can't get the camera in that corner', etc. Then I shoot. This was the case on ROMULUS: most of the shots were decided on the spot. At first I thought it was a lazy method, but then I remembered that Spielberg, too, arrives in the morning and chooses what he's going to do. For me, it's a good way of being inspired by the elements at my disposal, rather than building a set that absolutely has to fit a storyboard we designed beforehand. There's no right or wrong method. Each to his own. I also like to be as realistic as possible, especially in terms of acting. I tend to hire actors who 'are' the characters. If I want a kid to be nervous, I won't hire an overly charismatic guy who will play at being nervous. My obsession is that the set should be a playground, but that all the elements should be there, in place, so that the characters can play. So everything has to be as real as possible. The creatures are there, the actors are close to their roles, and so on. It makes things easier, but above all, it makes the shooting experience more real. When tourists come to Paris, they take pictures of the Eiffel Tower to bring that feeling with them. That's my job as a director: I do everything I can to bring to the screeng. The creature's entrance, the actor's reaction. In the scenes you've seen, there's the moment when Isabela (Merced) sees the cocoon on the wall: she knew the scene from the script, but she had no idea what it would look like, how it would move, so her reaction to the image is visceral. For me, the tension and horror have to work on the set as if it were a play. If it's already working there, I know that the editing, music sound and colour grading will take the scene to an even higher level. I'm obsessed with this: the moment. That's also why I do very long shots. I don't shoot bit by bit. If an actor has to run a corridor, I put one camera at the beginning, another at the corner to cover, and another at the end, so that he does it all at once and ends up really out of breath. I like that because it transpires on the screen afterwards.
A: Cailee Spaeny says that in ROMULUS the acting tends towards ALIEN and the action towards ALIENS.
F: And it's true.
A: These are two films with very different tones. How did you work the balance?
F: I think we tried not to control things too much. Some of the best things happen when you combine two elements that have never been combined before. Like MATRIX, with its mix of kung fu and cyber conspiracy. It's the combination that creates the original. In college, one of my professors taught me the definition of modern:: it's when the new meets the classic. On ROMULUS, I didn't have to worry about the new. The new is everywhere, all the time. You can't escape it. The actors are young and new. They live in our time, and that influences the way they move, behave and so on. The optics we use are new light isn't the same today as it used to be, and so on. Even though we try to be as close as possible to the original film, the technology doesn't do the same as it did back then. But we've also pushed in the other direction so that certain parts seem to come from another period. For example, with language, when the characters swear. We avoided swearing that was too modern, to make it seem more 'classic'. - you'll see, the way they say 'you son of a bitch!’ they say it like that! (Laughs.) We also embraced the best of classical techniques with lots of animatronics. Hopefully, all this will make the film modern, never too old-fashioned, never too new, never too 'now'.
A: At the time of DON'T BREATHE, you told us that writing horror was a catharsis, a way of projecting your fears into a story. With ALIEN, what fear are you exorcising - especially if it was the only project you really wanted to do?
F: I don't know what it is! It's almost frightening, actually. You know, my films are really honest. They really are. Especially since I write them. Even if some of them are set in pre-existing worlds, our characters are always new - except in MILLENIUM and maybe that's why I didn't enjoy the experience. So each time, we created characters and stories within a framework that already existed, and that allowed us to make them our own. It's fascinating and strange: I'm 46, I look back at my work and wonder what could have happened to me to write and direct films like this! Why do I gravitate towards these subjects? Quite clearly, everything in my films scares me. I couldn't create a moment of horror that didn't frighten me. Just now, when we were showing you the extracts, I was still in a panic! You see the cocoon that looks like a vagina, and all of a sudden, a thorn sticks out? It terrifies me. This kind of imagery inevitably comes from what I find disturbing. Why do you think that is? I've no idea. Ask my parents about my childhood! (Laughs.) I don't even want to know. Firstly, because I want to continue to feel this fear. Fear is exciting. It teaches you a lot about yourself. As soon as you know where it comes from, it's no longer scary and becomes... vulgar. Getting answers obsesses us all. But as has often been said, art is all about questions.
CAILEE SPEANY INTERVIEW
She's only 25, but you feel as if you've always known her - the lot of great actresses. It has to be said that 2024 was her year, with breathtaking performances in PRISCILLA and CIVIL WAR. Before starring opposite Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson's third KNIVES OUT, Cailee Spaeny is set to further refine her status with ALIEN: ROMULUS. Here’s an interview with an exciting actress who's never been in the same place twice.
BY AURÉLIEN ALLIN
A: In PRISCILLA and CIVIL WAR, your characters were partly observers. In ALIEN: ROMULUS, your character can't be, she has to act. Is this a coincidence, or did you seek this shift?
Cailee Spaeny: The only thing I'm really aware of when I take on a role is my desire to be a thousand miles away from the previous film. In terms of tone, going from CIVIL WAR to PRISCILLA (editor’s note: released later, CIVIL WAR was shot before PRISCILLA), then going from PRISCILLA to ALIEN was really embracing opposite worlds, and it required [of me] something totally different. In my work, you have to put a lot of thought into the character's arc. On ALIEN, at the start, I kept asking myself, ‘What’s her arc?’ Then I realized that you get an arc if you throw a person into a terrifying situation, where they're being stalked. That's the bow! And then, as you say, the character throws himself into the action. It's a real gift because you don't don't have to ask yourself: 'Where are the subtle changes [in the character] over the years? (Laughs.)
A: Your performances in CIVIL WAR and PRISCILLA were very dense and subtle. Is this possible on ALIEN, where you project a character into the action? And above all, is it necessary?
C: It's still necessary, yes. You still have to anchor the performance in something more action and horror, otherwise who cares? If you don't care about the characters, you'll just have one death after another with nothing at stake. That's what's so fascinating about the very first ALIEN: when we're introduced to the characters after they've woken up, you've got Harry Dean Stanton, Yaphet Kotto, Sigourney Weaver and so on. These are all actors. There's not much to establish their characters, but the actors are all so natural and their relationships so convincing... They don't talk about their families, they don't talk about their families, the script doesn't give them any backstory, but the bond between them is very strong. You feel an instant connection with them and for me, that's what makes ALIEN so terrifying. On the set, Fede (Alvarez) was constantly reminding us that we had to forget about the horror film and ask ourselves what our performances would be if this were an independent film. At times, the aim was to subvert the typical action-movie tone, and at other times to embrace it. There's a shot, for example, where I emerge from an elevator armed with a machine gun - behind the camera were two technicians with blowers: a pure ALIENS moment! We were constantly moving from one tone to another, and we had to find the right balance.
A: How do you go about building a character? Do you start with the character's inside or from the outside?
C: It helps to have something physical to hold onto. On CIVIL WAR, it was the camera. On ALIEN, I trained myself by telling myself that Rain was from a mining colony. So she's very physical and used to hard jobs. That immediately set the tone for the character. Then I thought about my own roots: I come from the Midwest of the United States, from a blue-collar background and a line of farmers. So I thought about who these people are, what they look like, what their temperament is, and so on. That was the starting point.
A: But do you have a set method for building a character?
C: No, not really. It's all a big mishmash: I'll read a book, watch tons of films, write the character's diary, train physically, look for a new way to learn my lines... and see what all that brings me or doesn't bring me.I throw it all into the blender, look at what's left and then try to forget it all and see what comes out on the first day of shooting. In PRISCILLA, many things came through your immobility: her rage, her joys, here rage, her joys, her sorrows, her strength.
A: Was it a physical performance for you?
C: Yes, in an extremely subtle way. Everything depended on tiny things. What is the impact of a blink of an eyelid, at that precise moment, in close-up? A very slight tilt of the head? For Sofia (Coppola, ed.), the devil is in the details - on the hands, on the feet; the emotional nuance when I put on my false eyelashes, etc). I had a blast doing all that. I came to know my face perfectly. (Laughs.) I never look at my shots on the monitor, that would be over-reflect, but on PRISCILLA I had to be hyper-aware of my every move because they all made a lot of sense.
A: Did it help you with ALIEN and this more overtly physical role?
C: I think it'll come in handy for all my roles. But ALIEN was very different. Particularly in the third act: it was very physical, and everything was based on moving a lot, you had to use your whole body to convey the shock, the horror, the survival instinct and so on. You know, I didn't study acting. I didn't receive any training. My school is filming. I learn different techniques on the job. It's a lot of fun, but it's also terrifying because if it doesn't work, it is immortalized on the screen for all eternity. (Laughs.)
A: Do you feel that it's harder to impose yourself and your character on films like PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING and ALIEN, because you're competing with a show, creatures and effects?
C: No, it just requires something else. I'd like to be able to tell you that in every film, as soon as the camera starts rolling, the character takes over, you become someone else and enter this higher state. I assure you, it's rare. At least for me. Because you've got a guy next door who's manipulating a puppet of some creature and making a little noise, and you're trying to figure out how to stay terrified during the six months it's going to
take to shoot... So most of the time, I use tricks of the trade. On PRISCILLA, we only had 30 days to shoot - that required something else. I can't tell you any better: it's different. I love all films, all genres, all styles of acting. ALIEN and ALIENS were very distinct in terms of tone, but also in terms of acting - because one was made in the 70s, the other in the 80s. And in my eyes, one is no better than the other. Both require technique and precise skills, particularly in understanding the tone of the film and convey it in the best possible way.
A: According to Fede Alvarez, ROMULUS is precisely halfway between ALIEN and ALIENS. Where did you see the balance in the game?
C: I think that on ROMULUS, the acting tends towards ALIEN, while the action tends towards ALIENS. In any case, we were constantly discussing it, testing things out, trying to find the balance. I trusted Fede completely because he knows this franchise like the back of his hand.
A: Without going into the cliché of "the new Ripley", did you have to reflect on this legacy? this heritage? Or did you decide to ignore it?
C: I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I can't remember ever having struggling with the subject. I knew how I wanted to play the role. I also knew that that I loved what Sigourney had done - I swooned over her acting and her screen presence. Maybe, through the study of her performance, something happened... But Sigourney is truly singular. So there couldn't have been any real debate in my head. It wasn't even a challenge, because I wouldn't have been able to win that battle!
A: I read that on CIVIL WAR, you refused to wear your earplugs in the action scenes because you wanted to "feel things".
C: (She grimaces)
A: I don't know if that's true...
C: It's true, yes. And it wasn't very clever of me, I know. But be tolerant, I'm in my twenties!
A: On a film like ALIEN, with the multitude of angles to be covered, effects etc., is it possible to "feel" things? Or is there a distancing?
C: On most big action or SF films, I'd say there's probably some distancing. But on ALIEN, one of Fede's priorities was to make everything look as real as possible. There was always something tangible to touch, real corridors to run through... Fede also made it an inflexible rule that we would trade lines, even when we weren't in the picture, even if it was just for a sentence or a single word - and I was very happy to do so. I imagine it must be easy, on these big films, to fall into the trap of playing in front of tennis balls. We had the creatures on the set, manipulated by puppeteers who've been working on this franchise for decades. When someone yells "Action! and you've got a xenomorph or a face-hugger in front of you, it makes all the difference.
A: How do you choose your roles from now on?
C: First and foremost, on the filmmaker and the script. I've been extremely lucky to be able to work with filmmakers in whom I had complete confidence. Directors who write, on top of that - one more with Fede. When you receive a script for an ALIEN, you tell yourself it has to be in the right hands. When I read "ALIEN, by Fede Alvarez", it made sense to me. Then, as I was saying, my choice is also dictated by my desire not to repeat what I've just done, either in terms of tone or character. After a while, on PRISCILLA, all I could think about was to roll in blood and run through corridors with a rifle in my hand. Then, after six months on ALIEN, all I could think about was heels and false eyelashes. As soon as I finish a film, all I want to do is the opposite. And now, I'd like to try my hand at comedy, because I've never done any. And if it doesn't work out, at least I'll have tried it! I'd also like to do some stage work. I want to develop new skills. That's what interests me: challenging myself. Even if it puts me in a permanent state of anxiety. (Laughs.) It's all very frightening for me. I’m terrified when the camera's on me. But if I'm going to do it, I might as well do it all the way...
A: On this subject, you said that you felt enormous pressure on PRISCILLA, because you knew that the real Priscilla Presley would see the film. Today you're playing in an ALIEN. Is pressure fuel?
C: Yes, it's my main fuel. Even if it's uncomfortable, anxiety and pressure have a positive side: you're forced to throw yourself into it. You arrive on set and cross your fingers and hope for the best. If you're lucky, the filmmaker is kind and intelligent enough not to judge you.
A: Is there a role that has given you a better understanding of your work and your skills?
C: When I'm acting, at the time, I never feel I've achieved anything. I even regress, as if I'd forgotten how to play. At the very beginning of my career, I had a very strong opinion about what was good and what was bad. I thought I knew what to do. But as I get older, it's a lot less clear-cut. I think it's a normal part of being an actor. Every role teaches me something new. The actors I work with also teach me things. On the set, I work with people who tend to be older than me - it's pretty scary, but it also speeds things up. Especially since most of them have been kind to me and took me under their wings. So I don't think there was one particular role that was decisive in my understanding of the business. I'm always learning, and I hope I always will be. Today, one of the questions I ask myself is how to deal with the fact of being number 1 on the day's call sheet. It's very stressful for me. There's pressure that goes beyond acting. Being on a set is already pressure.