this is a free tanzer from awards watch
and i’m thrilled to be speaking with alan tudyk about one of my favorite shows currently on the air
resident alien

how are you alex
thank you man i’m really good thank you thank you

so i feel like you were born to play this role
was there ever possibly the show got made without you in it
they evidently auditioned a lot of people
uh there was so they they they were waiting for me which is nice to hear
not not knowing they were waiting for me
they were just waiting for something that uh

and it was over a hundred people and uh then i came in and um it went pretty fast after that
so it did seem to fit early on definitely what fit most of it

what attracted you most to it
i love the idea for me personally that he was experiencing you know he’s an alien who came to earth who didn’t mean to come here
so he’s unprepared
it reminded me a little bit of i loved this one show when i was a kid
uh um what was that america’s greatest hero or yeah the great great american hero

and it was about a guy who had a a super suit but he didn’t have the directions
he lost the directions immediately so he was super but he didn’t know how to do it
so this guy is an alien who has all these powers and he’s he’s there trying to pretend to be a human but he doesn’t know what a human is
so he learns from tv and he learns um just from bumping into people when he gets pulled into the town
and in the pilot episode to help solve a murder

so that opened it up to a lot of physical comedy
and it opened it up to like just speaking
how how how not only do you learn a new language but you’re learning a new language with a new mouth
because his mouth is shaped completely differently
so he had to learn all over the world
it just it left a lot of room to play in so i got excited about that

i spoke with kaylee jeannie the makeup effects artist a while ago uh about this show
and she had very nice things to say about you
said you’re a lot of fun to work with
but i asked her i said when you have the you know alien head on which max can see you speak differently is that something to do with actually having something on
she said no i think that’s just alan doing that that’s generous
uh no it’s it’s the team uh it it’s a couple of things happen

i’m a lot more relaxed i noticed when i’m just talking with max
when i have these things with max and i’m wearing the alien mask
because he’s of course he can see me um as an alien
so it’s it’s almost like the that the pretense is gone
um i’m not trying to i’m not stiff trying to pretend to be something and watching myself
i’m just i’m just talking and being uh and yeah expressing myself to this little kid and exasperated usually with him
and um trying to outsmart him and never never outsmarting him

but then also the teeth make a heart where you you know the top ridge right behind your front teeth is where you make a lot of your enunciation
that’s a that that hard ridge right there is an important part and it’s obscured by a piece of plastic
so there’s a little bit of a slushy sound
a little two glasses of wine in i don’t know it sounds it’s a little bit of that in it

uh but the mask is great
it’s it does move a lot to my face and uh they make a new one for every time i have one on
it’s a new mask and uh yeah that makes it i don’t know it’s it’s great i love it
i also really enjoy harry’s enthusiasm for and curiosity about food
i just i’m picturing him you know eating a sort of eating a piece of pizza with his whole face i guess that’s the best way to put it
and just grabbing all of those appetizers from new york city

he does it from the very beginning
i think it was in one of the early episodes if not the first episode where he is taking a shower for the first time
and he gets the soap and he smells it smells good so he eats it
he eats the soap he eats the chicken bones and all
which i did i it’s amazing how many bones you can chew i didn’t know that until they just said we had so little time to shoot it
they just said here’s a chicken go
we don’t we got to get some stuff
and so i just face planted into the chicken and just started chewing whatever ended up in my mouth
so a drumstick just became nothing and it just became a mash in my mouth it was shocking
well done teeth proud of you

is there a lot of improv involved there
is they i’m very much about uh the lines that are written
that’s how i it’s part of my process you know i learned at the theater school and they it’s had a you know acting uh process in theater school
and you know they a lot of shakespeare and stuff
so like a period punctuation was very important
you interpreted a comma you know what does that mean what is the author telling me
so you know it’s watered down from shakespeare you know we aren’t making shakespeare

chris chris sheridan created the show would be the first to say
but uh i i find my character through that
but there’s a lot of opportunity for play um there in this this season
that in some of the unaired episodes that are coming next
um in the script it says harry calls there’s this baby alien this little baby alien this season and uh he calls to him in in this clicking sound
and so that i can’t do
and i knew it was going to be put in later so i did one clicking
and i where i would just do my math like that
but then i did my sort of like a frog sound and then i’ve got this one and then i’ve got this one that’s like a nose thing
and i knew it would just be a fun play back and forth with the sound team that to just put those in
uh you know so it’s like there’s improv there’s improv language improv but there’s even fun stuff like that that you get to play with
but it’s so it can be so silly on that end because he’s an alien and anything is possible so it’s fun

i really also enjoy your character’s relationship with sarah tomko’s character
what do you think about that that relationship
it’s it’s the most important one for harry
it’s his uh sarah’s his uh or uh osta her characters
his connection to everyone he he only wants her as a friend
and she’s she’s the first person he cares about the first human he cares about
that he he understands all emotions through her
and uh the she is the reason he doesn’t want to kill all the humans
because she says if you kill all the humans i’m one of them
so well then just come with me and i’ll kill everybody and we’ll be safe
no you can’t kill everyone
so out of respect for her and love for her he doesn’t

so it is it is the most important one
and they’re they’re almost they’re almost like siblings you know in a way that they can be
they can bicker you know
they have a love for one another but it’s a love of you know i love you but good god stop it stop eating this soap and all the things that harry god
she he’s got to be a very tough friend
i mean she’s she’s got a big heart because he’s he’s got some terrible ideas

do you think he’s ultimately a good guy is he capable of redemption
yes i do i do
um especially the way the rest of the season which people haven’t had a chance quite to see yet
uh that becomes he that’s more in focus
you know the the challenges that are presented and the choices he has to make put him on the good guy side
he wants to wants to fight for the good guy side

that’s good to hear
he he has a tough way of getting around to it
i mean he has to come up with the worst ideas before he finally finds the right idea
and it’s helped along by osta definitely uh to find the right idea
but he gets there

i know we haven’t seen those episodes yet
but do you think we’ll have a season three and beyond
after that
i do believe so um i i don’t know why i’m not worried i guess maybe i should
yeah yeah sure
it’s such a wild time right now in television

i was on a show called firefly a million years ago that got cancelled right
so that was during a time when there were you know some channels uh there were the main ones
and then but there were a few others on the side
but there weren’t streaming services and all the things
so when we did get canceled and it was a good show uh there was really no place for us to go
and i feel like if we did for some reason something happened and we all decided sci-fi decided no we’re not going to make another one
that there would be possible avenues for us
and i don’t think we’re done telling the stories and we like it we like each other and we we like we like our show so people would make the effort i think
yeah i certainly i certainly hope so

i also i think that firefly is like the poster child for a show that if streamers were around firefly would be in season 21 or some whatever you know
yeah yeah yes exactly

and i i mean i was thinking there were two other shows i think about when i think about you that were cancelled in my mind prematurely
one is dollhouse um yeah which i mean that is just so interesting to think about
i was talking with fran kranz recently about how westworld is like a similar idea and that sort of took off the dollhouse
it just i don’t know the timing wasn’t right
yeah absolutely i mean it uh it was a bit before its time in that way
i i’ve thought the same thing about westworld
it is it’s yeah using human well in ours we’re human reprogrammable dolls
but uh it’s that same thing playing out rich people fantasies

i also really enjoyed you and dirk gently as holistic detective agency i’m sure
oh yes insanely fun to make yeah that was wild that was nuts i loved it
yeah really cool people
i mean there’s clearly a theme you go for these like science fiction oriented shows not always space
but there’s always got to be something uh interesting about it right
yeah i guess i’ve always i tend to like those kinds of roles
i like roles that are have a lot of dimension to them that are somewhat theatrical i guess
definitely harry is a theatrical role you know it it is it requires a physicality to play him
uh which is more of a theatrical nature full body uh character
uh not just walking talking walking down the hallway talking heads
um it’s a it’s a great place to play with humor and drama

uh in that in that world uh also the humor can be extreme because you’re in a whole new world
um with resident alien it’s this world but he’s from another world
so uh his ability to regrow his leg or i think war for me which is fun
is the is like those the calls the little calls that it could just that i can come up with face acting making weird faces
and that later on it’s gonna be and it’s a it’s a joke that’s on a it’s an audio joke
i love being able to do you do do things like that and and and that’s this is that’s the place where it lives in those in these types of shows

i did enjoy your performance also on powerless which i know is not like as you know
that was a fun yeah that show i i love that show
uh they uh that yeah we just found our our stride on that show
was such a weird that’s one of those weird tv shows where it was like the people who created it then didn’t end up making it
and every the cast stayed the same but our roles all changed
it was really weird so it was by the like six seventh episode it was like oh oh that’s what this is now and it wasn’t

but adam west was in like our final episode and so i got to work with adam west in his last role which was fantastic
and he was so cool and a legend and he was very nice to me and he was fantastic in it
um they didn’t even show that episode until after he passed away
it was one that didn’t get aired
but it was such a good episode and it plays in this world like peacemaker you know
it’s this this world where you have superheroes that are real people too
and it was it was like it was the idea that you have superheroes in a city
and i was a wayne i was bruce wayne’s loser cousin who really wanted to work for the wayne industries
but he wasn’t quite good enough so it it it does it was doing what a lot of shows are doing now
and uh i thought they did it really well
but they’re making that quinta bronson’s new show now which is so fantastic
so i mean those guys and they also i also work with the same guys uh harley quinn on hbo which is a animated show
and so i’m still working with them and so it’s still a lot of fun
but they’re smart and funny so yeah

well before i let you guys want to take advantage of you mentioning dc properties a number of times
to talk about doom patrol which i think is so so fascinating
and i think your character was so like so incredible
is there a chance that we’ll see mr nobody again or is he still stuck on a painting somewhere
he’s stuck in a painting i wish i you know that that job came at a weird time
i it came sort of on i got that job and resident alien in the same week
uh and the way that that contract worked it was it was on a streamer in the beginning
that streamer that doesn’t exist anymore

um and so i feel like resident alien took over and now that isn’t really an option
i i would i would be very open to it
they were it was very fun um and it is a it’s another really cool another one of these cool shows that is kind of sci-fi kind of superhero world
uh it’s yeah like i mean peacemaker’s such a cool show and such a great hit
and james gunn so funny
um but it it’s it’s like that

yeah awesome well i really appreciate you speaking with me about all this
it’s just it’s it’s cool to unpack all this and i hope we talk again soon about season three of president eliot
my pleasure man thank you thanks so much