One of Syfy's biggest original series premieres this year is Resident Alien, based on the Dark Horse Comics series by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. Developed for television by Chris Sheridan (Family Guy), the series stars Alan Tudyk as an alien tasked with wiping out humanity that is forced to take a human form of a man named Harry after he crashes outside of a small town in Colorado. As he attempts to rebuild his ship, Harry befriends a local woman with a troubled past named Asta Twelvetrees, portrayed by Sara Tomko, who helps him find his sense of humanity and reconsider his extraterrestrial mission.
In an exclusive roundtable interview attended by CBR, Tomko and Sheridan shared about finding the genuine heart for the characters and story amidst all the sci-fi comedy, how it was working with the entire ensemble and writing to their strengths. CBR led off the interview by asking Tomko about her character Asta handling much of the show's emotional heavy lifting, with Sheridan complimenting the actor on being the best crier in the business.
"That's just so true to who I am: I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm angry, I cry when I'm sad; it fits right in," Tomko laughed. "I think the shift between comedy and drama can be a sharp contrast at first but isn't that just life? I feel like it's such a lovely metaphor for how we can feel so many things in one day, in one episode, in one season. The concept that there is now an alien how has to feel all of these things so quickly and so fast to adapt, I think it's so lovely he witnesses someone like Asta being so vulnerable and raw. She's like an open wound so he doesn't quite know how to understand it but I feel like she helps him understand that's part of the emotional, human experience."
"I think him being so brutally honest is really good for me because she doesn't really have a lot of trust in men when we first meet her because of her abusive ex-husband and feelings of abandonment and grief," Tomko continued about Asta's dynamic with Harry. "Between Harry and D'arcy, she's provided this truly honest, comic breath of fresh air that I think is so lovely to witness. For Harry and for D'arcy, she provides this reminder that it's okay to feel which I think is really nice as well."
As part of his initial pitch, Sheridan developed an entire plan for the first season on his own before forming a writers room. After the writing staff was assembled, Sheridan was careful in bringing together a diverse mix of voices, with some writers coming from a background in writing forensic crime stories to address those plot points in the series but also to ensure veracity on the show's unique ensemble.
"Over half of [the writers] were women because there's a lot of really important female stories in the show and I wanted their voices heard," Sheridan revealed. "I came with a bunch of stuff and then the writers room shaped that and we made it all better."
Sheridan did not develop the show with specific actors in mind for the roles, laying out the essence for each character before casting. After noticing the personalities and qualities of the actors before and during the filming of the pilot episode, Sheridan adapted his writing for each character accordingly to take advantage of their inherent strengths and approaches to their respective performances. Sheridan consulted with each of the main cast to discuss their respective character arcs and place his trust in their interpretation of how they would react in a given situation.
While Tomko consciously avoided reading reviews to prevent them from affecting her performance, she theorized that fans have responded positively to her performance as Asta was due to the character being more grounded and serving as a point-of-view character of sorts for the audience into the show. Tomko felt Asta having her emotions so accessible also makes her much more relatable and vulnerable to the audience, coupled with the show's earned comedy and how strong the ensemble of actors is playing off each other. Sheridan added that Tomko's performance brings a raw energy to the show and credits Asta in helping Harry find his own sense of humanity.
"During the pilot, in the scene in the clinic when she gives Harry a compliment, it's the first time Harry felt something," Sheridan reflected. "That's the power that Sara has over the audience as well; when Sara starts to cry, you start to cry. It's very relatable because everybody is going through a real hard time right now and Asta is going through a real hard time in her life right now and you live a little bit through her. As hard as it is, she tries to stay positive and keep fighting and keep moving forward and she'll continue that for the rest of this season. She and Harry have this weird friendship now where they both came into this world fresh out of these bad predicaments and have these walls up and don't trust anyone. And as the season continues and their relationship continues, you'll see them slowly try to lower those walls a little bit."
Sheridan hinted Asta would discover something about Harry that will cause her to raise her personal walls around him once more while Tomko noted that the two have always danced around Harry keeping his true, extraterrestrial nature a secret from her. Tomko teased Asta's family and friends, including Harry, will help her rebuild her personal life, culminating in her standing up to someone from her past that had really hurt her. And according to Tomko, more than just Asta will have their own character arcs pay off by the end of the season as the question lingers if Harry will follow through on his secret plot to eradicate humanity before leaving Earth.
"There's other characters in the show that get to have a moment where they finally get to say how they feel and I think that's a real beautiful theme in the whole show," Tomko observed. "For Harry, finally getting to express how he feels about some things with Isabelle, his wife that we just met in Episode 4; she finally gets to say things...that makes this beautiful arc this season that the audience gets to have with moments of justice and success."
To close out the roundtable, CBR asked one last question how it was writing for and performing as part of such a fan-favorite ensemble cast.
"From a writing standpoint, it's just been incredible," Sheridan declared. "I would go up to these actors and ask how they thought their characters would feel in a moment and every one of these actors I had these conversations with as we moved their arcs along. It's such an incredible resource for me and such a gift, for myself and the writing staff, to be able to write for these incredible actors who take what you write and take it to the next level. When I'm writing, I really get into the scene and there's a scene in the pilot that Sara and I have talked about when she finally leaves her husband and I remember crying while I wrote that scene; I'm her in that moment."
"I remember watching her do that scene when we were shooting and just bawling my eyes out watching her go through that experience and I told her 'This is the moment where I'm giving the character to you now,'" Sheridan continued. "And it was an experience I had never had before and she and the rest of the cast have taken everything that we, as writers, have done and elevated all of it so it's really been a gift."
"That was one of the most special moments of the pilot, for me," Tomko recalled while jokingly observing that the cast and crew for the comedy all cried on set that day. "We had so many conversations about our own personal past and pain and grief that we've gone through that was similar to what Asta was experiencing and that was so rewarding for us both. For Chris to release Asta to me and me to release my emotions to her, that scene in the tunnel is kind of a defining moment for her: Does she turn back or does she keep going? And seeing that stag reminds her that she's protected and it's so beautiful and synergetic to my life."
Tomko shared that the moment with the stag mirrored with her own life experiences when she and her fiancee encountered a deer while walking through the Sequoia Forest in California while she was at a personal crossroads.
"That has been the common theme with working with this ensemble," Tomko explained. "Every single ensemble member has a synergetic story like that ties into how Chris managed to write the character. And so there's this weird, beautiful togetherness that magnetized us to this circle. So when I get to be on set with them, you can feel it, this energy pumping through the cast like we're meant to do this. And on top of it, I'm surrounded by so many comedians on set. [Laughs] I don't have to do much, I just sit back and I listen and I watch and I have really honest reactions through all of the funny guys. They're all so funny and great and it's been so rewarding."
Starring Alan Tudyk, Sara Tomko, Corey Reynolds, Alice Wetterlund and Levi Fiehler, Resident Alien airs new episodes on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Syfy.
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