Alien: Earth – Lily Newmark on the Nibs Moment She’s Been Waiting Her Whole Life For

Ever since Ian Holm’s Ash oozed milky white blood all over the floor of the USCSS Nostromo, androids have been an integral part of the Alien franchise. Now FX’s Alien: Earth, the first TV series in the hallowed IP, has upped the ante in a major way.

The eight-episode Noah Hawley-created project features three distinct flavors of artificial intelligence: your standard android (Timothy Olyphant’s Kirsh), a cybernetically-enhanced human (Babou Ceesay’s Morrow), and a collection of child brains in robotic bodies known as “hybrids,” whose unique consciousness have led to some rich drama. Case in point is the season’s penultimate episode “Emergence,” in which hybrids Wendy (Sydney Chandler) and Nibs (Lily Newmark) come across their own graves, occupied by tiny bodies they’ve left behind and marked by names that are no longer their own.

“Initially it was very heartbreaking to confront but in the end, it was more about having closure, you know, really putting Rose to bed, so to speak,” Rose Ellis a.k.a. “Nibs” actress Lily Newmark tells Den of Geek.

First introduced to mass audiences via Netflix’s British sex dramedy Sex Education, the London-born Newmark is making the best of her time as one of Alien: Earth‘s “Lost Boys.” While Nibs doesn’t share much in common with her identically-named counterpart from J.M. Barrie lore, her experience as a child thrust into a situation far beyond her comprehending still rings true. The scientists of Prodigy Corporation may have erased the precocious hybrid’s memory but as we see in episode 7, it takes more than a little shedding of white blood to truly bring her down.

We caught up with Newmark to discuss Nibs’ big episode, what it’s like working with T. Ocellus, and the finer points of tearing a man’s jaw off his head.

Den of Geek: What’s the audition process like for a role like this? How do they even describe a “hybrid” on the page?

Lily Newmark: It was so confusing! I’ve had some cryptic synopses and briefs sent to me before, but I’d never been sent anything with this kind of premise, so I was deeply confused, as was Kate Rhodes James, who was the casting director for this. Kate got me on Zoom, and we just experimented with the three scenes I was sent. We explored what it would be like doing a scene as an eight-year-old child, and then doing a scene as something more robot, and then doing the scene just as my adult self. And in the end, the character was a combination of all three. So eventually I had to figure out how to combine all those ways of approaching it. 

The penultimate episode of this season is a pretty big one for Nibs. What was it like playing that scene in which Nibs comes across Rose Ellis’s grave? What’s going on for her at that moment?

Initially it was very heartbreaking to confront but in the end, it was more about having closure, you know, really putting Rose to bed, so to speak. It was finding myself being present in my new physical form and being excited by that as opposed to it being a triggering circumstance. It really was more about catharsis and closure and just regaining control once again in a more peaceful way.

This episode also gives you the opportunity to play around with some of the physical sci-fi things that come with the Alien universe. What was it like to tear that dude’s jaw off?

That was so much fun! I’ve been waiting my whole life to do that. With the effects team, we practiced with a dummy version of that character’s head. It was honestly creepy how realistic it was. It had like a retractable jaw that I could pull out with all these guts attached to it. So it was a real mouth piece that I yanked out of his mouth. A lot of that was practical effects – like it was real blood and guts we were working with. It felt very satisfying to rip it off. I was gagging for it.

Can you tell me what it’s like working with “The Eyeball” or T. Ocellus on set? How much practical eyeball stuff do you get to play with, and what is it even called in the script? 

I thought it was “T. Oculus,” but I think misread it. We were calling it the “Eye midge” when we were working with it, which was really just working with my imagination. There were a couple moments where they gave me a kind of mini version of it. I don’t know if you ever had those bouncy balls as a kid, the ones that really go springing, those ones. It was kind of that size with stringy, jelly legs. It wasn’t anywhere near as large as it is in the final edit but I had a few goes with that one where it wrapped around my hand.

For all the wider angles where I’m seeing it from afar and it’s approaching me, I just had to use my imagination, which was a fun challenge. But yeah, the physical effects and the special effects really do most of the work in that scene. I was just praying that I had the most appropriate reactions in the final edit. You don’t know really what you’re working with until you see it on the screen. I think it’s [beloved] because it’s kind of a cute version of an alien. It’s probably one of the more likable ones

As evidenced by that T. Ocellus line of questioning, I’m always highly invested in little critters. With that in mind, what’s it like working with that diva, Mr. Strawberry? 

Oh my god, just the biggest diva. Everyone said!

What is he, by the way? Is he like a road runner?

I know he does look like Road Runner, that’s so true. But he’s an ostrich. He’s a big booty ostrich. He was wonderful to work with. I don’t have a bad word to say about Mr. Strawberry. He did need a clean pretty much every day because he, poor guy, got covered in all sorts. He was also used as a sweat rag because it was so hot over there. I couldn’t have done the job without him. He was my strongest ally on set and I miss him. I miss him.

The eighth and final episode of Alien: Earth season 1 premieres Tuesday, September 23 at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu.