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Resident Alien Star Alan Tudyk on Season 3, Cast Chemistry & More

Alan Tudyk spoke with Bleeding Cool about the third season of SYFY's Resident Alien, Harry's love interest, the cast's chemistry & much more!

Alan Tudyk carved a bit of a legacy in the live-action and voiceover worlds, creating several memorable characters in his nearly three-decade career. With over 150 credits to his name, it's hard to find a franchise he hasn't been a part of. In 2021, SYFY afforded him a rare opportunity to play the lead as Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle and his extraterrestrial counterpart who assumed his identity in the sci-fi series Resident Alien. Initially traveling to Earth to destroy it, it crash lands on the planet in the town of Patience, Colorado. His ship missing, and his superweapon is scattered in pieces; he acclimates to small-town life, and its residents start to grow on him. Through three seasons, "Harry" develops a renewed purpose of caring about the friends he's made, saving the planet he once swore to destroy, and working for the very government that saw him as a threat. Tudyk spoke to Bleeding Cool about the Chris Sheridan series success; Harry's love interest Heather, played by Edi Patterson (and who else was considered for the role); the writing, and seeing younger actors grow on the series. The following contains major spoilers and was conducted ahead of the season finale.

Resident Alien: Alan Tudyk on Harry's Complicated Journey & Relationship with Humans

Bleeding Cool: Three seasons on 'Resident Alien,' how do you make it work so well with Chris Sheridan and the cast?

Tudyk: Everybody enjoys doing the show and believes in the show. That's a big part of it. We aren't coming to work feeling like the work is beneath us or anything like that. We are excited by our characters, the stories that Chris is writing, and the stories that we're telling, so that's a huge part. There's a general respect between the actors on set and the creators with everybody. Anytime you have a workplace where there's general respect for one another, it makes it more enjoyable, and we're no exception and we have fun.

Harry had a love interest with the Blue Avian, Heather. Can you break down the dynamic you had with Edi Patterson this season?

Edi Patterson and I did an improv show several years ago at The Groundlings. She's a Grounding member, and I remember being like, I didn't know any of her work at that point, and I thought she's incredible. She finished doing 'Vice Principals.' So anyway, I had that in the back of my head, like, "Gosh, if I could ever work with her, that'd be great." When the Avian came along as a character, Chris told me about it and they're talking about a lot of different types of actresses. Some are like the most beautiful woman you could imagine because it's supposed to be the most beautiful. That's what we know of the Avians as the most beautiful aliens out there.

I remember Jessica Alba was being floated at one point, and I was pushing for Edi the whole time. We have got to have somebody who is going to have a lot of fun with this character, and she's that. She takes it and runs with it with all her head movement, all her bird stuff. It's nice to have an actress in a character actress who embraces the character and will take every opportunity to ground what is in the scene through their character. It gives you something to work off, and it just keeps adding. It's just all you end up with, something you couldn't have imagined when you started.

How do you keep a character like Harry fresh with all his quirks, and does it become a challenge to keep up with them? Did the comic help guide your interpretation?

A lot of it is in the writing where they're even things because he's an alien who's been on the earth for a short time. There are a lot of story points that are about him not being human, him not wanting to be human, him becoming more human, and him being corrupted by emotion. In the second season, he suddenly was afraid, and even in the first season he started to feel fear. By the end of the first season, he's too human even to set off the bomb that will kill all the humans because it burns him. He turns it on, and it burns, and he realizes, "Oh, I've become too human." It's in the writing that he becomes more and more human. The way that Chris had put it to me was that this season, season three, [going back to] his teenage years and this is why I fell in love with the blue Avian on it's a rite of passage for your first love. It's about going to the place of first love again, in your mind, in your heart, embracing it, and filtering you through an alien like you do.

Throughout the series, the ensemble cast has largely been kept intact. Can you speak on the younger talent with Kaylayla Raine, Gracelyn Awad Rinke, and Judah Prehn, who's grown up on the show? Can you speak of how they grew as actors and what impressed you about their performances over the years?

There's an episode tonight [on March 27th]. I don't know when people are going to get to see this, but in season three, episode seven ["Here Comes My Baby"]. In this season, Judah Prehn has a nice little piece of dramatic acting. Our roles are pretty set. We butt heads in the beginning. He's the one character who can see me as an alien from the start and so he's a problem. I try to kill him, but he outsmarts me, and it's a very contentious relationship. The way that it works out and the way the writers have…I don't want to give anything away. They presented something with. Well, I guess at this point, I can't because it's going to be on tonight. Where my baby, Bridget, is taking on all these different forms, all these different humans that are using the DNA in my cabin and use a booger [laughs]. It's a class show, a family show.

A booger from Max is on the floor and takes the form of Max. In that form, Bridget voices his anger at me for leaving him and sending him to my planet alone, which Harry didn't think of, "Why would you not want to be on a frozen planet? That's the greatest. Why would you want to be here on Earth, Ugh?" Bridget's come down to take revenge, and it gets to do it in the form of Max at the end, and we hug at the end, and it was funny. Judah's like, "Eww, cooties," because it's not the way that our characters interact. Kaylayla's grown up. She's great, a wonderful woman, and so Gracie, who played Sahar, who's now moving out of the show in season three, but she's such a fantastic little actress. She's always been great and solid.

The season finale of Resident Alien, which also stars Sara Tomko, Alice Wetterlund, Corey Reynolds, Levi Fiehler, Elizabeth Bowen, and Meredith Garretson, airs on April 3rd on Syfy and is available to stream on Peacock.

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