If there was ever a suitable actor to portray an alien posing as a medical professional, that man is Alan Tudyk.
Adapted from the Dark Horse comic book of the same name (and opens on Wednesday, January 27, at 10 / 9c on Syfy and the USA Network), Inhabitant of another planet follows an extraterrestrial (Tudyk) after he falls to Earth and takes on the role of a small town human doctor named Harry Vanderspeigle. Although the alien’s original mission is to kill the Earth’s inhabitants and destroy the planet, Harry deviates when he is mistaken for a doctor and tries to solve a local murder. He soon learns that, in order to survive his new strange elements, he needs to be assimilated by society. So he builds ties with the good folks in Patience, Colorado, which leads to lots of supernatural antics (which Tudyk drops from the park).
“I loved the script right away,” Tudyk told TVLine, as he discussed his preparation for the eccentric release. To say that the strange Harry struggles against the normal conventions of society, let alone speak the English language or gain the trust of his fellow citizens, is an understatement.
“The scene where he is learning to speak like a human and is watching Law and order and getting it wrong … it was immediately exciting for me, because I knew he would have to learn all, ”Says Tudyk. “When I made Sonny in I steal, all of those questions were answered for me at that time. Like, how would a robot talk and how would a robot move? The alien is approaching a human being in the same way: how would you move with the most ergonomic efficiency in this way? “
Tudyk also says that putting your fantasy out of this world is a challenge and a performance booster. The mask and the suit, created by Bill Terezakis (The x file, Bates Motel) and enhanced with a 2-D digital overlay on the post, it takes a few hours to wear. However, despite being “a little difficult”, Tudyk feels that extraterrestrial clothing helps everything to fit.
“It’s almost as if there is a little more ease in the character,” notes the actor. “He’s not hiding that much. He’s still Harry, but although there is less expression on the mask, I can almost have More expression like the alien talking to Max. ”
What “Max” Tudyk mentions is Harry’s first and newest enemy. Played by Judah Prehn, the 10-year-old is the only resident of Solitaire who can see Harry as he really is: a wide-eyed alien who is clearly not from this planet.
“Max gets the best out of Harry all the time. And he got a friend, Sahar – who can’t see Harry as an alien, but believes in Max – and the two joined together against me! ”Tudyk says, laughing. “Ultimately, Max and Harry reach a point where the enemies arrive. There is mutual respect for the fight as the series progresses. Like Professor X and Magneto … I think I’m Magneto? In any case, he is a very cool character in this analogy ”, he jokes.
Throughout the series, Harry develops from a villain to something a little more evolved, which may or may not jeopardize his original mission. His interactions with people like nurse Asta Twelvetrees (Sara Tomko, Once Upon a time), bartender D’Arcy (Alice Wetterlund, Earth people) and Mayor Ben Hawthorne (Levi Fiehler, The Fosters) eventually begin to weigh on him. “When he takes on human form, he starts to discover very early that he is feeling things and feeling the world with our spectrum of senses,” says Tudyk. “It starts to affect you. He starts to actually know what it is to be human. “
As to how exactly Harry’s new empathy will affect his murderous mission, viewers will have to wait for that answer to be revealed over the course of the season. But, Tudyk provokes, one of the city’s residents will discover the truth about his identity by the end of the season.
“Someone in the city is going to find out that he is an alien,” he says. “Maybe even more than one person.”
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