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IR Interview: Aileen Wu For “Alien - Romulus” [Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment]
The Inside Reel
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11/29/2024
Actress Aileen Wu talks to The Inside Reel about approach, movement, physicality and approaching mythology in regards to her role as Navarro in “Alien: Romulus” now available from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
Category
🎥
Short film
Transcript
Display full video transcript
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Oh, my God!
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Annie, open the door.
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We need you to open that door right now.
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Come on and open the door!
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Annie!
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Run.
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No!
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No!
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What do you mean there's something in the water?
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I don't know.
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There's just something in the water.
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Run.
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Well, it's interesting because when Kaylee, when she first, for her first, for Pacific
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Rim, she and I talked before that came out, and it was interesting because that was her
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first big thing, and it was just sort of how do you make those little movements, how do
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you make those little ideas, those little eye gestures or stillness work?
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And that's what, with Navarro, there's a stillness and there's a specificity that she has when,
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as you're playing her, as you're walking down the ladder, as you're moving in and out, can
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you talk about movement?
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Because movement can say as much within film as the words.
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Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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Oh, such good questions.
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So, for Navarro's physicality, I have to be honest, Carlos did such a good job with costume
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design, and once we did a couple of fittings, I really started to find her, because clothes
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say so much about a person, especially in their circumstances where nobody has any money,
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nobody has any choices.
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When the choices are so limited, what these characters choose say a lot.
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So once I had the leather jacket on and the leather pants and the gloves and the little
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necklace and the watch too, the watch played a lot, kind of how she carries herself really
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came through.
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And I felt a lot like my father.
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My father wears these big jackets, and even though he's a businessman, he wears the same
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white t-shirt every day.
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He's recently moved on to colored t-shirts, but it's the same thing every day.
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And he kind of walks around with this power and ownership.
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It's his armor.
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Yes.
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And this confidence, I think, she really needed inside the Corbellan, because she is the pilot.
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She's so familiar with this huge piece of machine.
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So it was just like, and I'm so thankful for my theater training for this.
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I carry this huge belief that repetition is everything.
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If you can repeat it, whether it be words or a movement, if you can repeat it, repeat
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it, repeat it, your body learns it, and it looks so natural.
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So like those ladder sequences and those like firing up the ship scene, I just, I loved
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every time Fede would call reset off screen, I'll be like, oh, thank God, I get to do it
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again.
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Call reset again.
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I get to do it again.
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I'm sure there are people, plenty of people on set who wanted to move on.
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I was like, if I get to do it again, it'll be better than the last time.
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Help me!
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Are you sure you want to do this?
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Because it feels close to, I mean, because there's so much expectation with this kind
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of film, plus with Ridley, you know, that, all that.
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And yet there, and especially, and also the camera thing, but like that first sequence,
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when you guys are going up into the stratosphere, you feel sort of that adrenaline, but it's
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all in the practicality of it.
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Can you talk about expectation?
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Because it is an alien movie.
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I mean, and it's sort of like, literally like, it jumps over all and goes straight from the
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OG.
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I mean, could you talk about that?
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Did you have any conception of the alien world?
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Were you a fan?
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Were you aware of the different iterations?
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And does that help?
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Or does that hinder, knowing the mythology?
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For sure.
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Oh, great.
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So I didn't know much about the alien franchise before booking this role.
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I did watch the first film to prep for my audition.
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And then I watched all the other films to prep for shooting.
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For that specific firing up the ship and going up into space, I remember rewatching all of
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the flying sequences in every sci-fi film I could find.
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We're talking-
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Which one jumps out?
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Which one jumps out though, Autumn?
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Oh my God.
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I love how Firefly highlighting sequence work.
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I love that show.
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It's yeah.
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And I tried to, I think the best one I could find from Star Wars is probably Rogue One
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or from Mandalorian.
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It's just like watching those videos from YouTube on repeat and trying to find, okay,
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what is it?
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What is it that is so natural about it?
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And trying to find something in my own life that I can relate to.
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And I was like, I cook a lot.
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It's like when I'm cooking, I'm not really thinking about it.
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Like I could have a whole conversation with my husband as I'm chopping things and cooking
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things up.
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It feels like that.
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So instant.
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Yes, exactly.
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But I think what really helped was when they brought in a real pilot to come speak to me
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about, we kind of broke down the lines, okay, what does, why do you have to fire up navigation
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before you fire up the hydraulic pump?
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Like mechanically, technically speaking from the ship's point of view, what is happening
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to the machine as you're pressing each button?
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Having that concept living in my brain and going through it over and over again on my
11:02
own time, I think at the end, we had the perfect formula to make it work.
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