Noah Hawley’s new FX series Alien: Earth doesn’t waste time pretending it’s just about xenomorphs. The monsters are there — acid blood, drooling menace, all that good stuff — but the real horror is us. Or as actor David Rysdahl puts it, “From the insect’s point of view, we’re the monster.”
Rysdahl, who plays Arthur in the show, knows his way around a moral gray zone. He worked with Hawley before on Fargo’s fifth season, playing Wayne — the kind of well-meaning man who tries to keep his family safe in a collapsing world. In Alien: Earth, he’s another version of that same struggle, this time in a future where corporations and scientists are chasing immortality while the planet burns. “Noah has a huge brain and a huge heart,” Rysdahl says. “I feel like I’m playing his conscience in both of these shows.”
That conscience is the uneasy center of Alien: Earth. Arthur starts as an idealist — a scientist who believes in progress and the purity of his work. “He loves the technology. He’s not a villain,” Rysdahl says. “But like the scientists in Oppenheimer, he doesn’t realize what he’s helping to create until it’s too late.”
The show’s premise, about a crashed spacecraft and a group of soldiers who discover Earth’s real threat isn’t from space, lets Hawley twist Alien’s mythology into something uncomfortably close to reality. “It’s not just a monster story,” Rysdahl insists. “It’s about AI, immortality, and climate collapse. It’s asking if we even deserve to survive.”
That’s not exactly the kind of question you want to ask yourself before bed. But Rysdahl dove in anyway — reading Ray Kurzweil and essays on transhumanism while filming in Thailand. “Did it give me answers? No,” he laughs. “But it let me put my fears into a role. I think artists get in trouble when we give too many answers. Our job is to ask the questions.”
If that sounds heavy, it is. But Alien: Earth isn’t all philosophy and dread. It’s got the classic Ridley Scott DNA — real sets, puppets, sweat, blood, and a world that looks lived-in. “We weren’t acting in front of tennis balls,” Rysdahl says. “We had people in suits, puppeteers, physical things to react to. You just have to be present.”
That realism extends to the show’s complicated cast of hybrids and synthetics — beings who blur the line between human and machine. Rysdahl describes Arthur’s relationship with them as “part science experiment, part fatherhood panic.” He worked closely with co-star Essie Davis to build that backstory. “Arthur really believes these are his children,” he says. “But then he starts to realize he’s been playing God. And suddenly, you’re asking yourself, ‘What are we doing?’”
He laughs about how much thought went into even the physical details — like the beard he grew during the strike delay. “Arthur had to be the most human in the room,” he says. “Everyone else was sleek, synthetic, perfect. I wanted him to be the guy eating an egg salad sandwich in the middle of all that.”
It’s an oddly comforting image — humanity represented by crumbs in a beard. But it also fits Hawley’s strange, gorgeous universe, where tone whiplash is part of the thrill. The show’s soundtrack swings from Pearl Jam to Tool to Nina Simone, echoing Fargo’s twisted sense of musical irony. “Noah loves finding the song that shouldn’t work but somehow works perfectly,” Rysdahl says. “It surprises you every time.”
As for joining another established property — first Fargo, now Alien — Rysdahl admits he was nervous. “When I first heard about the Fargo show, I thought, ‘Bad idea.’ Then I saw it and went, ‘Okay, that’s amazing.’ So when Noah said, ‘Come to Thailand,’ I trusted him completely. He’s one of the few people who can expand these worlds without breaking them.”
And maybe that’s the secret: treating a franchise not as nostalgia bait, but as a mirror. Rysdahl’s take on Alien: Earth reflects the same questions that keep us up at night — about technology, extinction, and what we owe to each other while the countdown ticks. “It’s humbling,” he says. “We think we’re the pinnacle of something, but the planet was fine before us, and it’ll be fine after us. The best we can do is approach the world with humility. That’s what Arthur has to learn. And maybe what we all do.”
It’s a sci-fi series that makes you want to think for a while right after watching. And maybe grow a beard.
Watch the full interview above and then check out the trailer below.
