Is Alien: Earth's Wendy The New Ripley? The Star And EP Break Down What They Have In Common — Watch Video
FX's new series Alien: Earth centers on a female character taking on a horde of killer aliens — and so of course, any fan can't help but be reminded of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the Alien films.
Sydney Chandler — the daughter of actor Kyle Chandler, with roles on Sugar and Pistol — stars in Alien: Earth (premiering Tuesday, Aug. 12 at 8/7c) as Wendy, a synthetic "hybrid" with the consciousness of a human child and the superhuman powers of a robot. And the levelheaded way she deals with the inevitable alien invasion shares a lot in common with Ripley, Chandler tells TVLine in the video above.
Showrunner Noah Hawley "was able to write a very, very layered, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other character" in Wendy, Chandler says. "It's very present, which I think you feel from Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. She's very 'take it minute by minute,' and 'don't think too far ahead,' and 'leave the past behind, here we are now.'"
Chandler also notes that Wendy's childlike brain contributes to her tendency to live in the moment: "There's a rationale to that that you don't expect from a child, but children do have. I think Noah, watching him write about kids, he has so much respect and curiosity towards how a child's mind works."
The Alien franchise actually has a long legacy of strong female characters, and Hawley finds another reference point for Wendy: Newt, the 10-year-old girl played by Carrie Henn in the 1986 sequel Aliens. "In some ways, that informs very much who Wendy is, right?" he says. "She's a child in an adult's body... There's nobody more human than a child, right? They don't know how to pretend they're not scared. They're bad liars. And they also look at the world and see the things that we have just learned to accept."
Chandler adds that it's "really intriguing" to play a female character who takes control in action scenes like Wendy does. "It is new... to be able to play a character who, it's not written on the page, like, 'One tear falls from her eye,' or 'She runs into his arms and faints.'" Instead, Wendy "gets angry, or goes to throw the punch, which is fun and refreshing."
Hawley is quick to remind us, though, that "Sigourney's character was not an action hero" in the Alien films: "She was a space trucker, who was literally bringing a payload back to Earth and rose to the occasion." And he sees the same kind of humble heroism in Wendy: "As someone who's made a show called Fargo about the power of decency over evil, I think Wendy's just inherently a decent person, and she's going to thrive because of it."
Press PLAY above to hear the Alien: Earth team talk about Wendy vs. Ripley, and let us know if you'll be watching in the comments.