SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “In Space, No One…,” Season 1, Episode 5 of “Alien: Earth,” now streaming on Hulu.
In Episode 5 of the first season of “Alien: Earth” — written and directed by show creator Noah Hawley — we get a new view into the character of Morrow.
As played by British actor Babou Ceesay, Morrow has to this point been something of a cipher: We know that he was piloting the research vessel Maginot when it crash-landed on our planet, and that he is an enhanced human being — a cyborg — but little more than that.
In the episode “In Space, No One…,” we get a clearer sense of Morrow. (We also get plenty of horror — that implied “…Can Hear You Scream” from the movie’s original tagline in the episode title comes through loud and clear.) In a flashback to the Maginot before the vessel crashed, we see Morrow as a man in grief, recollecting his daughter, who died of an incurable disease. He discovers that the alien specimens he holds so dear — organic beings that may hold the key to preventing fates like his daughter’s in the future — are subject to a plot: Fellow crew member Petrovich (Enzo Cilenti) plans to hand them over to one of the world’s governing corporate CEOs Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) in exchange for participation in Kavalier’s pilot program of embedding human consciousness into synthetic hybrid bodies. (Kavalier’s Prodigy Corporation and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, familiar from the big-screen “Alien” franchise, are among the groups locked in battle for the future of the planet, which will also involve controlling what extraterrestrial life crash-lands here.)
Courtesy of Patrick Brown/FX
As security officer of the Maginot, Morrow abandons his post to kill the traitor — allowing the ship to continue its collision course into Earth. Once he returns to command, Morrow ignores the screams of another crew member as she’s confronted by a Xenomorph newly let loose on the ship: It’s too late for any unaltered human to avoid this collision, but Morrow has ensured, for now, that the ship’s precious alien life won’t fall directly into an oligarch’s hands.
Variety spoke to Ceesay via Zoom in June; the actor was in Gambia, where he was directing a Wolof-language production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible.”
The ways in which Morrow is more than human must have made for an interesting acting challenge.
It was. I did some research on cyborgs and found this guy named Neil, who basically had a cyborg attachment added to his head. He’s an artist, and he’s color-blind, so he had something added to the base of his skull at the back that comes out to the front. What it does is a sort of sound response. He hears color. Watching his interview, he’s talking about being more than human. He feels like he’s the next level up. He went from someone shy to someone who has his place in the world.
How did Noah Hawley pitch this episode to you?
While he was explaining some of those contradictions that came out in it in terms of what happened with his daughter, it suddenly made sense of some of the stuff we’d been discussing about Morrow having this warmer side. As unbelievable as that sounds, I thought, No, he has another side to him where there’s almost a moral compass.
That element of him was what I needed to cling on to, this idea that he’s still human and moral. And he sees that side of himself in two different ways. He sees it as useful — he’ll pull it up, and he can connect with people if he needs to. But, really, deep down, he thinks it’s a weakness. He’s ashamed that he has a part of him like that. He’s learned to be cold.
Right.
The fact that he was someone with palsy who’d been abandoned by his mother — that taught him something about people, that people will only lean toward you if you are useful. Imagine the first time they put this billion-dollar piece of equipment on him. I imagine the nurse would have said to him, Look, you’d better make this work. We’re investing in you. So make it work. If they take it away from you, what have you got left?
He’s always trying to be as efficient as possible in what he’s trying to do — to be as machinelike as possible.
Knowing you shot the series largely in sequence, was it a challenge to shoot the earlier episodes and not give away Morrow’s complicated motivations?
I knew there’s something human about this guy that I wanted to cover up as much as possible until the moment. People make up their minds about you. They’re like, OK, this is what you are, as quickly as possible, just so that they can put you in a box and figure out how you’re going to behave. I love the unpredictability that Noah brings to it. My hope is that when people see Episode 5 and see some of the motivations, they’re more on the fence. It’s not like, “OK, this guy is mission-driven and insane and mean. It’s more like, I don’t know how I feel about him now.”
Courtesy of Patrick Brown/FX
How did the aspect of Morrow’s family history affect the performance, especially given that for much of the show, you’re engaging with other children who might remind him of his daughter’s death?
When I found out that he had a daughter and that she had died in the way that she had, it struck a chord much deeper in me. The actress playing my daughter is my real daughter. We were shooting, and they were looking for someone to play my daughter, and my daughter was out there [in Thailand] with me going to school, with my son and my wife. Noah was like, what would you think if they’d use her letters, or they’d use a baby picture. Imagine, in that scene, I’m looking at that — it goes to another level. Even talking about it now affects me.
On another note, I love how quintessentially “Alien” the start of Episode 5 is — crew members are just kind of hanging out, smoking cigarettes, eating, and it feels very quotidian and workaday. They’re people on a job. It reminded me of scenes from the original “Alien,” on the Nostromo.
One hundred percent. We were all aware of it. We had our moment of feeling giddy when you first walk on — oh my goodness, I’m on the Nostromo. It’s real. [The “Alien: Earth” ship is the Maginot, but it was designed to look like the Nostromo.] Everyone there was a fan. Having that first moment, getting into that comfort zone — as a group, I call us the Ep Fivers, we knew we had to cross a lot of boundaries very quickly and get comfortable with each other so we could have it that way where they’re speaking over each other.
Did the episode stand out to you in the long, long experience of the production? How long did it take to shoot?
Five weeks and a bit. It was intense. I didn’t see my kids much during that one. But Ep. 5 was special. Because you’re essentially shooting an “Alien” movie in the middle of this “Alien” series.
I’m curious what Noah shares about the whole season. Do you have a sense of what future seasons might entail?
[Coming into shooting,] I had an idea of the first season. What’s good about Noah is that you really do get a good sense of everything that’s going on, so you can pitch your character properly. And sometimes, when they keep these things secret, it just makes it that much harder to play the role — you make a choice, and you’re stuck with it later. I have an idea of what happens at the top of Season 2, should we get a second season. And it’s going to be epic.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
