The Xenomorph Speaks! ‘Alien: Earth’ Star Cameron Brown on Wearing the Suit, His Balcony Jump Stunt and Running Inside the Maginot
Within the dark hallways and blinking fluorescent lights of “Alien: Earth,” you’ll catch a small (but frightening) glimpse of a 6’2 Xenomorph lurking in the background. It’s the kind of thing that gives someone the chills, since everything that stands in the creature’s way is guaranteed to be ripped to shreds.
Despite never playing a creature before, stunt performer Cameron Brown found himself suiting up to take on the role of one of sci-fi’s most beloved creatures. Brown spoke to Variety about his favorite stunts, and how long it took him to get into the Xenomorph suit.
I got notes from Noah through the suit design and through Weta Workshop. I live in Australia, and Weta is headquartered in New Zealand; it’s the other side of the world opposite where Noah is. A lot of my cues came through the creature itself. As different elements of the suit started coming together, they were going to inform how this creature was going to move and interact with the world.
After being cast, I went back and watched the first three movies in particular. I was looking for movement cues in those three to try and accurately continue on the legacy of the performers who had come before me. I also watched “Alien vs. Predator” a few times. There’s really nice movements that Tom [Woodruff Jr.] and the other actors in there did, which helped influence some of the choices that I made. I went through Pinterest and Google Images, looking for stills from comics and fan art and silhouettes that people had imagined of the Xenomorph. I tried to incorporate these still moments into the movement to keep it as authentic as possible.
The standout is the lordship apartment sequence [in Episode 2] and the jump off the balcony. It was a pretty cool stunt to get to perform in particular because of how much of a collaboration it was between all of the departments. Everything was practical, from the exploding glass to the table that I was landing on. Then the chandelier behind was real explosions, the camera team moving the dolly in sequence with Alex [Lawther] acting in the foreground of the whole thing going off in what was essentially one or two seconds. That was a really special moment.
The Maginot is quite contained and claustrophobic, which lent itself to me wanting to be more quadrupedic than bipedal. It was an instinct that I had from the start. In Episode 5, there’s a shot which I really like, when Zoya Zaveri [Richa Moorjani] is running away from the Xenomorph and I come around the corner. We did the entire scene practically. Ben O’Hanlon, the key stunt rigger, rigged up a slack line that went around a corner. We had a bunch of quick release systems that allowed for that to happen, and then had me on an air powered ratchet, which fired the button and shot me around the corner in the suit.
I had an amazing team of technicians who were with me on set, day to day. By the end of the show, we had it down to 20 minutes to get in and 20 minutes to get out. It was really well-created because there has been a lot of innovation since the ’70s and the first H.R. Giger Xenomorph suit. The suit that I was wearing was completely modular. We had separate legs, separate arms, a separate torso, separate neck and a separate head. Most of the time I was waiting around, sitting for a shot that I was needed for. I could hang out in the torso, arms and legs, and have the neck and head off and be fairly comfortable.
For the later episodes, Jayde Rutene was the actor in the suit because they wanted someone smaller to play the adolescent version of the Xenomorph. I stepped back into more of an advisory kind of role and helped guide her into her role as that creature. That is something that we spoke about a lot as the scripts were coming out: how that relationship was going to look between a Xenomorph and something new. We haven’t seen these human consciousnesses inside synthetic bodies before.
It’s just amazing to don that costume and wear the mask of the Xenomorph at all. Having worked on it as a performer, and now watching it as a fan, I’m equally as impressed watching it as I was working on it. I’m just really stoked that Noah trusted me to take on this role and help him create his vision for this world.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Despite never playing a creature before, stunt performer Cameron Brown found himself suiting up to take on the role of one of sci-fi’s most beloved creatures. Brown spoke to Variety about his favorite stunts, and how long it took him to get into the Xenomorph suit.
I got notes from Noah through the suit design and through Weta Workshop. I live in Australia, and Weta is headquartered in New Zealand; it’s the other side of the world opposite where Noah is. A lot of my cues came through the creature itself. As different elements of the suit started coming together, they were going to inform how this creature was going to move and interact with the world.
After being cast, I went back and watched the first three movies in particular. I was looking for movement cues in those three to try and accurately continue on the legacy of the performers who had come before me. I also watched “Alien vs. Predator” a few times. There’s really nice movements that Tom [Woodruff Jr.] and the other actors in there did, which helped influence some of the choices that I made. I went through Pinterest and Google Images, looking for stills from comics and fan art and silhouettes that people had imagined of the Xenomorph. I tried to incorporate these still moments into the movement to keep it as authentic as possible.
The standout is the lordship apartment sequence [in Episode 2] and the jump off the balcony. It was a pretty cool stunt to get to perform in particular because of how much of a collaboration it was between all of the departments. Everything was practical, from the exploding glass to the table that I was landing on. Then the chandelier behind was real explosions, the camera team moving the dolly in sequence with Alex [Lawther] acting in the foreground of the whole thing going off in what was essentially one or two seconds. That was a really special moment.
The Maginot is quite contained and claustrophobic, which lent itself to me wanting to be more quadrupedic than bipedal. It was an instinct that I had from the start. In Episode 5, there’s a shot which I really like, when Zoya Zaveri [Richa Moorjani] is running away from the Xenomorph and I come around the corner. We did the entire scene practically. Ben O’Hanlon, the key stunt rigger, rigged up a slack line that went around a corner. We had a bunch of quick release systems that allowed for that to happen, and then had me on an air powered ratchet, which fired the button and shot me around the corner in the suit.
I had an amazing team of technicians who were with me on set, day to day. By the end of the show, we had it down to 20 minutes to get in and 20 minutes to get out. It was really well-created because there has been a lot of innovation since the ’70s and the first H.R. Giger Xenomorph suit. The suit that I was wearing was completely modular. We had separate legs, separate arms, a separate torso, separate neck and a separate head. Most of the time I was waiting around, sitting for a shot that I was needed for. I could hang out in the torso, arms and legs, and have the neck and head off and be fairly comfortable.
For the later episodes, Jayde Rutene was the actor in the suit because they wanted someone smaller to play the adolescent version of the Xenomorph. I stepped back into more of an advisory kind of role and helped guide her into her role as that creature. That is something that we spoke about a lot as the scripts were coming out: how that relationship was going to look between a Xenomorph and something new. We haven’t seen these human consciousnesses inside synthetic bodies before.
It’s just amazing to don that costume and wear the mask of the Xenomorph at all. Having worked on it as a performer, and now watching it as a fan, I’m equally as impressed watching it as I was working on it. I’m just really stoked that Noah trusted me to take on this role and help him create his vision for this world.
This interview has been edited and condensed.