How They Made Facehuggers and Chestbursterss

Spoiler alert: This article discusses plot points in the movie “Alien: Romulus.”” Now showing in theaters.

Anticipation is high for horror fans eager to see “Alien: Romulus,” the seventh chapter in the popular sci-fi franchise. It’s directed by Fede Álvarez, who’s helmed two classics of modern, gory horror: the 2013 remake of “Evil Dead” and 2016’s “Don’t Breathe.” It’s set between the first two films in the series—1979’s “Alien” and 1986’s “Aliens”—both considered cornerstones of the genre. Surprisingly, it’s also the debut film for one of the film’s stars, Aileen Wu. Wu plays Navarro, a spaceship pilot who has some very Close encounters with aliens. Wu is a student of the craft, having attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, but he admits that the experience was filled with many surreal, wide-ranging moments. Wu spoke to diverse About the intense process of acting with aliens, learning how to pilot a spaceship, and the joy of shaving her head.

How did you get this role?

This is my first feature film ever. I got asked to record it myself, as most actors do, and I recorded it and then two days later I got a phone call. And two days after that, the full script was sent to me, and then two days after that, the full script was sent to me. who I was on a call with Fede and he was already in Budapest. During the call, I felt like he was trying to convince me: “You know, you’re going to be covered in blood. You’re going to be sitting in this hole for eight hours. You can’t get out. This creature is going to be sitting on your face for a long time. You can’t have claustrophobia, are you?” I said, “No, I’m not claustrophobic.” I used to have a claustrophobia problem in high school. The next morning, my agent got a call from the studio and that’s when I got the official offer. Two days later, I was on a plane to Budapest. It happened so fast, I didn’t know what was going on until we actually started shooting.

When was the first time you had that thought, “Oh, I’m in this particle production?”

We shot the movie chronologically, and one of the first big scenes was us all in the spaceship. Navarro, my character, is driving the spaceship, and then they bring in a real pilot to talk to me and explain to me what each language means, where all the buttons are, and why the sequence is the way it is. They practiced that sequence of me driving the spaceship, or at least taking it off the ground.

Naaman Marshall, our production designer, did an amazing job of accommodating Fede's desire for everything to be practical. Every button I could push was responding – it was absolutely insane. I had no idea that as an actor in 2024, I would have this experience on a movie set. That's when I realized it. I was like, 'Oh my God, this is the dream.'

Were you familiar with the “Alien” movie series when you got the job?

I have an older brother who was a huge action figure collector. He always had a Xenomorph on his shelf. I didn't know what it was when I was little, but I knew it looked different because it was next to Thor and Captain America. I'd ask, “What is this thing? It doesn't look heroic.” And he'd say, “You don't want to know — you're too young. I'm going to save you. Trust me. I'm protecting you. I'm doing you a favor.” So it wasn't until I got the part that I was like, “Okay, time to do some homework.” I watched the first one and my brother was right — I was too young.

When did you first realize you were on the label?

The day the poster came out, it was on Instagram, X, Facebook, all over the place. Some media outlets picked it up, and then it slowly seeped into buses, bus stops, billboards, subway stations, and taxis in New York. Then my friends in Paris sent me a picture of the poster on the bus. Then it was all over Times Square. So it was a slow burn of my shaved head taking over the world. It was amazing.

It's a great look!

I love it. I love my shaved head. I first shaved it in 2019, so I've been wearing this hairstyle for a while. My friends and classmates in New York City know me as “Eileen with the shaved head.” Everyone was like, “That's your shaved head. I know that head!”

What was the process like when you had to wear a face mask?

There was a group in charge of the huggers and they had their own studios that they worked in on set. When we were shooting in Budapest, you would walk into the building where they were based and it was like you were walking into a hugger warehouse. There would be rows and rows of just tails, just tongues, just different parts of fingers. That was my first introduction, and then we started training. The first thing they asked me to do was taste a bunch of lubricants: this one was strawberry, this one was mango, this one was pineapple, and this one had no taste. They would basically rub the lubricant all over the hugger to get this shiny effect. When we got to shoot this part, I think we shot this scene over the course of three or four days. For the longer takes that we shot in wide, it was hard because the huggers are so heavy — I think they weighed about three pounds. The middle part, where it goes around my mouth and nose, is hollow, but it’s still made of silicone, so it’s not easy to breathe.

Then they wrapped the fingers around my head and secured it in the back with a bunch of rubber bands to make it as tight as possible, and they wrapped the tail around my neck. In some shots, they would tie a fishing line to the end, so someone could pull it off camera and it would tighten and look like it was strangling me. Then there were the bladders on the hug that were hanging around the cheek area where you could see the hug breathing, which I had to match my breathing to as well because that’s how the creature keeps its victim alive while it does its thing. I struggled a lot because it’s a long shot of me hitting the ground and flopping and struggling. Spike [Fearn]“My brother Bjorn, who plays my brother, was trying to get it off my face and he passed out after his tail choked him and then he immediately had to keep up with my breathing, and it was so intense. It was like a balloon pump and it had a really long syringe. It was controlled by someone outside the scene, just pumping the thing throughout the entire scene. Sometimes I would mess it up and then I would think, ‘Ah, it’s good. I’m doing enough.’”

You also have the famous death photo of the fighter's body, with an X-ray to see it moving inside your guts. What was the process of shooting this photo?

Chestburster was created by Alec Gillis and his team, who worked on the original “Alien” movies, so it was fun to spend time with them on set and hear a bunch of stories about Sigourney Weaver. The franchise is 45 years old and they were in my 20s now when they started working on those movies – that was special.

This scene also took about half a week to shoot. There were three different prosthetic parts. The first part was a piece with a pump and a balloon inside to make it look like my rib cage. The second day, I had to lie in a hole in the ground and they attached a really big piece that started from my collar bone. I had a full chest, it was like a front backpack. For that part, there was a lever attached to a water pump that would open. The box was hollow, and they would put the little chest dummy through the fake box and it would come out.

One of them had controllers to control the head, the hand and the bag. Then you can hear Fede on the radio during each take, directing the puppeteers, “Make him face towards his mommy! He wants to feel close to his mommy,” and then the hugger lays on my chest while I lay there, convulsing and dying and foaming. There's a lot of lemon juice, and I think it's baking powder or baking soda to make it really foamy. It was take after take, but I was using it. [co-star] Isabella Merced was with me in those days, and she helped me a lot to overcome that situation. She used to say, “If you have five other people inside you, tell them you have three other people inside you, so they don’t continue to take advantage of you.” I love her for that, because she taught me tips and tricks of the trade as a newcomer. It’s really nice of her to pass on some of the things she’s learned over the years because she’s been in the business for so long.

Despite the chaos surrounding your death, it was very convincing. How was your death convincingly portrayed on camera?

I had to really trust my own video and vision because I can't empathize with dead people, but I try to conjure up the intense physical pain, and imagine what it would be like if there was something inside me moving, that just came out of nowhere after I blacked out. But a lot of it was me leaning on my video like, “Hey, I did something that I think might work. Did it work on camera?” And then it was a lot of back and forth while we were shooting the scene. And then you just try not to think about it too much because if it didn't work, he'd tell me.

Are you worried about any of your friends or family who will panic when they have to watch you meet your death?

I don't care. It doesn't matter – they have to go see the movie. It's mandatory. I told all my friends and family, “Everyone should see this movie, unless you're 70 or older and have a heart condition. Then, to be safe, you can stay home.” But yeah, bring all your friends. Bring your neighbors. Everyone should see this movie in theaters.

Did you have a pinch me moment at the premiere?

[Producer] Ridley Scott gave me a fist bump before we took a group photo. It was crazy. He was so calm.

This interview has been edited and condensed.