Cailee Spaeny’s Journey in Alien: Romulus Actually Began Years Before Her Casting

While perhaps not as immediately obvious as a drooling xenomorph with acid-for-blood, one of the many secrets to the Alien franchise’s longevity has been its casting. The original 1979 movie directed by Ridley Scott is rightly celebrated for introducing Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley to the world, yet that whole film’s ensemble is pretty extraordinary. For all intents and purposes, it marked American audiences’ introductions to John Hurt and Ian Holm while also featuring an overall grizzled naturalism, courtesy of actors like Tom Skerritt and Yaphet Kotto.

When the folks starring in the series’ latest iteration, Alien: Romulus, think back to the ’79 movie today, they’re still in a bit of awe. Actor David Jonsson, who plays a benevolent android named Andy in the film, enthuses the first Alien is “almost a theater piece” with its reliance on an often quiet, unshowy ensemble. Alien: Romulus star Cailee Spaeny, meanwhile, marvels that “there is something really exciting about the first one and the fresh faces that are onscreen with that true ’70s style of acting.”

It was an effect that Alien: Romulus aims to recreate. As co-writer and director Fede Alvarez says in our latest Den of Geek magazine cover story, Romulus is determined to return to the horror of Scott’s original film while also marrying it to the heightened ’80s spectacle of the James Cameron sequel, Aliens. That too is reflected in the casting of Alien: Romulus, which is largely comprised of unknowns. In fact, Alvarez tells us that when he initially began thinking of Spaeny as the lead character in the film—she’s a space colonist named Rain—Spaeny had not even been cast yet in Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla.

“Cailee read for me for another movie like four or five years ago,” Alvarez explains now. “At the time, she was just too young for the role, but I was fascinated with her. I thought she was incredible. [It was like] one of the few times in my life that an actor would walk into the room… and I would be like, ‘Who is this person?!’”

So when it came time to write Alien: Romulus with frequent collaborator Rodo Sayagues—who worked on Don’t Breathe and 2013’s Evil Dead remake with Alvarez—one of the first things the director did was put an image of Spaeny on a vision board to help imagine who Rain would be.

“It could be Marlon Brando from On the Waterfront, it doesn’t matter,” says Alvarez about this process. “It’s just a model that looks the part. It doesn’t mean I got to cast them. But in this case, as soon as I started writing, I told Rodo I know who this is. I googled a photo of her and I put it on the board, and I was like ‘that’s the face of the character.’ Then we wrote the whole thing and her face had been there the whole time. Towards the end, I was almost superstitious about it, [saying] ‘I think now I have to cast her!’”

The director credits 20th Century Studios for going along with the casting since, at the time, Spaeny was respected for character work like her appearances on HBO’s Mare of Easttown and in Alex Garland’s Devs—which is to say far from a household name.

“I’m sure there were other names that were higher profile or whatever at the time… but the studio was open and generous enough to go with it and believe in her,” Alvarez says. He even recalls around the same time they began discussing the role, she told him she also had a meeting coming up with someone named… Priscilla Presley. That iconic subject of Coppola’s 2023 biopic, alongside a lead role in Garland’s recent thriller hit, Civil War, has quickly changed Spaeny’s perception in the industry ahead of Alien: Romulus.

For the actor’s part, the appeal of joining Romulus of course included participating in a storied franchise that has already featured iconic performances from the likes of Sigourney Weaver and Michael Fassbender. However, after getting her start by appearing in big budget sci-fi projects like Pacific Rim: Uprising, she was thrilled by how tactile and gritty Alvarez went with this next chapter in the xenomorph saga.

“A fear with these films is that you’re going to sign on to something and you’re going to spend six months in front of a green screen reacting to some guy waving around a tennis ball, which I’ve done before,” Spaeny says. “But that’s why the first conversations with Fede were so exciting, and I really hope it works, because it really made a difference for us as actors… I barely remember seeing any green or blue screen, and that was really helpful.”

Read more of our conversations with the director and cast of Alien: Romulus in our cover story for the latest issue of Den of Geek magazine. The movie opens on Aug. 16.