Tag: Resident Alien

TV Interview!

Interview with cast of “Resident Alien” on Syfy by Suzanne 12/9/21

It’s always great to talk to these people! They’re just very fun and hilarious! Much like the show. There may be some spoilers here, so you may not want to read it before watching the second season.

NBCUNIVERSAL VIRTUAL PRESS TOUR

SYFY

Resident Alien

Corey Reynolds, Talent, “Sheriff Mike Thompson” Sara Tomko, Talent, “Asta Twelvetrees” Alan Tudyk, Talent, “Harry Vanderspeigle” Alice Wetterlund, Talent, “D’Arcy Bloom” Chris Sheridan, Executive Producer/Creator

Virtual via Zoom

December 9, 2021

© 2021 NBCUniversal, Inc.  All rights reserved.

PAM BEER:  Hi.  I am Pam Beer to introduce our panel for “Resident Alien,” which we announced this morning will launch it’s second season on Wednesday, January 26th, at 9:00, on both SYFY and USA Network before moving exclusively to SYFY.  “Resident Alien” follows a crash‑landed alien named Harry, whose secret mission is to kill all humans.  In Season 2, Harry is once again stranded on Earth where he must confront the consequences of having failed his people’s mission to destroy the human race.  On his new quest to protect the people of Earth, Harry struggles to hold on to his alien identity as his human emotions grow stronger by the day.  Here is a clip from behind the scenes of “Resident Alien.”

In the top row are executive producer Chris Sheridan, Alan Tudyk, and Sara Tomko.  In the bottom row are Alice Wetterlund and Corey Reynolds.  We are now ready for your questions.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Thank you, Pam.  And welcome to our panelists.  Just a reminder to use the “raise hand” function if you have a question.  Our first question comes from Mike Hughes and Suzanne Lanoue is on deck.  Mike, go ahead.

QUESTION:  Yeah.  Alan, you get to do a lot of weird things in this show, but I wanted to ask you about two of them.  One of them is running off with that, sort of, octopus in your hands, what was that like?  And the second one is getting to pronounce your actual real name from your planet, how hard was that to learn to pronounce that, and how difficult is that to do?

ALAN TUDYK:  Oh, yes.  Well, that’s excellent.  I forget you guys have seen the three episodes.  I haven’t seen that.  Running with the octopus was great because it’s made of rubber, some kind of silicone, and it does its own acting.  You just give it a little jiggle, and it really comes through.  It’s a great scene partner.  That was a blast.  We shot that in Ladysmith, which is a little town that (inaudible).  And running down the streets of Ladysmith with an octopus was fun to do.  I think it was popular with the local residents as well.  Anytime Harry speaks his language, it’s always fun.  I don’t know that it will ever be a language like Klingon where you go to conventions and people actually speak it as a language.  It’s much more illusive.  It’s very illusive.  So it’s like it’s a back‑and‑forth between me and the editors.  It switches up a little bit every take, and then they find the best string of sounds and probably facial expressions to go along with it that makes for the best scene.

QUESTION:  Okay.  Thanks.

ALAN TUDYK:  Thanks, man.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Our next question comes from Suzanne Lanoue, and Abbie Bernstein will be on deck.  Go ahead, Suzanne.

QUESTION:  Good morning.  Nice to see you guys again.  Chris, I enjoyed the three episodes, and I love the music in the first three episodes that we saw, especially the “MASH” theme at the end.  Who chose the music, and will there be any more singing in this season?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  I chose the music.  I have some music supervisors that help.  But I will say, the “MASH” theme ‑‑ these are all spoilers, by the way.  I can get into the specifics from these episodes that, probably, you can’t write about quite yet.  But the “MASH,” yeah, there’s that moment at the end of 3 where ‑‑ again, this is not to be revealed, but ‑‑ D’Arcy gets in the helicopter.  I had sent a picture of Alice in a helicopter to ‑‑

ALICE WETTERLUND:  A video.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  ‑‑ a video of Alice in a helicopter to Alice Wetterlund, and she sent it back to me with the wonderful “MASH” theme attached to it, and I was determined from that point on to put that in the episode.  So, we are in the process of playing ‑‑

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Lily, your daughter, Chris, is obsessed with “MASH.”

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  My daughter is obsessed with “MASH.”

ALICE WETTERLUND:  So, we are, kind of, always ‑‑ it’s in the zeitgeist of the show.  It’s conversation ‑‑

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yeah.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  ‑‑ because it is in the zeitgeist.  And, so, I saw that footage, and it just ‑‑ a lot of the footage from the show ‑‑ and you can write about this ‑‑ is very beautiful.  We have incredible DPs.  And it just looked like film to me.  It looked old and gorgeous.  And I just was, like, “Oh, you’ve got to put the theme song.”  But in terms of who chooses the music ‑‑ and you should probably write this ‑‑ it’s mostly me and Levi.  And he does have a music supervisor that no one has ever met, but it’s really cool because Levi and I do a radio show for the cast and the crew.  And sometimes, every once in a while, Chris is nice enough to pick one of the songs that we’ve played on our radio show to put on the show, the actual show.  So, yeah, feel free to write about the radio show.  No one ever cares.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yes, I do.  I definitely use the radio show to find music.  So, it’s all very helpful.

QUESTION:  And did you hear my other part of the question about will we see any singing this season?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  We will.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Oh, you know we will.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Well, we will see singing.  We will see ‑‑ Alice will get to sing this year, which we are very excited about.  I don’t know which episode it is, but we will get to see Alice Wetterlund sing this year, which is going to be fantastic.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Well, there is a karaoke machine in the bar that you’ve written in for the season.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yeah.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  So, you kind of ‑‑

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  I had to go back to it.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  It seems like everybody is going to make their rounds.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yeah.  Alice is next.  We’ll see who goes next, maybe Sara.  Sara is good.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  I think so.

QUESTION:  Thank you so much.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Our next question comes from Abbie Bernstein, and Jamie Ruby is going to be on deck.  Abbie, go for it.

QUESTION:  Hi.  I have two questions, actually, one for Mr. Tudyk and one for Mr. Sheridan.  I won’t print this until after the episodes have aired.  But, Mr. Tudyk, when Harry is playing other people, do you study those actors?  Do those actors go to Alan Tudyk school?  Does everybody just wing it?  How does that work?

ALAN TUDYK:  I recognize you.

QUESTION:  Hello.

ALAN TUDYK:  Hello.  I recognize your voice.  How is it going?

QUESTION:  Good.

ALAN TUDYK:  It is good to hear you.  It’s ‑‑ they’ve watched the show.  So, they, sort of ‑‑ I think they just go to Alan school, I guess.  And, yeah, it’s really up to them.  I make myself available if they want to talk about my process and how I go about it.  But, yeah, I mean, I guess you’ve seen the first three episodes.  So, is Alice born?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  The first three episodes.

ALAN TUDYK:  So, you’ve seen that.  So, yes, Alice is just naturally an alien, I think.  She just has that about her, and it’s not just the probing.  She just comes across that way.  But I think Sara could probably speak to this a little bit as well because you had to do it, right?

SARA TOMKO:  Yeah.  I was going to jump in and say, I don’t remember what episode, but I had a small little part where I got to be Harry.  And I was going to ask you for advice, Alan, but I also was, like ‑‑ I think I just wanted to watch you.  I think I started really just, kind of, creepily staring at you as I got closer to that scene.

ALAN TUDYK:  I remember, when I woke up from my nap in my trailer, you were standing over me.

SARA TOMKO:  I was like this?

ALAN TUDYK:  It was a little odd.

SARA TOMKO:  Do you know what, Alan?  I have to say, the small, little time I got to be you, it’s very physical.  At least it was for me.  I felt like my whole body was stiff.  I felt like I had very mechanical movements.  Chris actually suggested I do this hand motion towards the door because that’s something you had done in a previous scene.  So, I did that.  But I also just felt like there’s a lot more than, I think, the audience can even see that you are doing.  I don’t know.  To me, it just felt like a full‑body workout.  And I was really, like, “Man, if I had to do this all the time, every day, I would be exhausted.”  So, I’m super proud of you.

CHRIS SHERIDAN: (Inaudible) with those, Sara.  That was Sara playing Harry playing Asta.  I mean, that was no ‑-

SARA TOMKO:  Yes.

ALAN TUDYK:  Right.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  ‑‑ (inaudible) good too.  Get Corey in on that.  Maybe Corey is the next one whose body Alan takes over.  I don’t know.

COREY REYNOLDS:  I’m looking forward to it.  I told you, I think that would be a really fun thing to jump into Harry’s body.  I think that would be great.  I think that’s one of the unique components of this show is that ‑‑ not to ‑‑ making sure I’m not giving away any spoilers here because I see this transforming thing is a potential spoiler, but I think that’s one of the really cool components of this show is that there’s this aspect of everyone getting a chance to ‑‑ or everyone Harry needs to embody getting a chance to provide their interpretation of Harry and of Alan’s performance of Harry.  I think that will be fun.  I look forward to it.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  About ten minutes before Alan’s (inaudible) scene playing Harry, I went up to her, and I said, “Do you want to spend some time with Alan?”  I said, “Alan is gracious as an actor, and he would want to spend time with her if she wanted to watch his movements or whatever.”  And she said, “I’m good.”  At least she had studied it on her own, but I was, like, “All right.”

QUESTION:  And, Mr. Sheridan, is the series still following the graphic novels, or has it taken off in its own direction now?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  It took off in its own direction early on in Season 1, not that we don’t still pay homage to the novels.  We even look for different framing of some shots and some different shots from the graphic novels that we try to use in the show.  That first graphic novel was about the murder of Sam Hodges, which is continuing into the second season.  So that is still alive for us.  There is an episode where that is, sort of, pulled from one of the graphic novels that we are doing this season where Harry and Asta go to New York in search of an alien, and that is directly from one of the ‑‑ or indirectly ‑‑ directly and indirectly off of one of the graphic novels.  That was one of my favorite comments of theirs that they did.  I thought Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse did an incredible job with that one.  As soon as I read it, I thought that would be a great training for her, Alan, and Sara to do.  So, we worked that into the season.

SARA TOMKO:  At the time we talked about that, Chris, we were not in a pandemic.  So, I think we all thought, “We get to go to New York.”

ALAN TUDYK:  Yes.

SARA TOMKO:  And that didn’t happen.  But Vancouver is a pretty cool second New York.  I think they did a great job.

COREY REYNOLDS:  You guys went to Newcouver.

SARA TOMKO:  Newcouver.

COREY REYNOLDS:  Newcouver.

QUESTION:  Thank you very much.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Our next question comes from Jamie Ruby, and then Jamie Steinberg is going to be on deck.  So, Jamie Ruby, go ahead.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Jamie.

QUESTION:  Hi, guys.  Thanks for talking to us today.  Alan, I want to know if you can talk about working with Judah because you two are so hilarious together.  Yeah.  Can you just talk about that and what it’s like working with him?

ALAN TUDYK:  I enjoy working with Judah.  I think he’s a great kid.  He’s funny.  He’s naturally funny.  So, I guess I have a lot of respect for him.  That probably helps.  He’s really funny.  It’s, like, his instincts are of a comedic instinct.  He sees what’s funny and can top it.  We did some improv this season.  There is a scene where ‑‑ it’s probably in the episodes you saw where he gets a spanking.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yeah.  That’s enough.

ALAN TUDYK:  And so, yeah, he loved getting to just riff on “That doesn’t hurt.”  “You are doing it wrong.”  Anything he was saying during that, those were all things he came up with, and he really enjoyed it.  He’s come into this season very curious about the show.

COREY REYNOLDS:  “Longer than ever.”

ALAN TUDYK:  He’s just a cool kid.  I don’t have kids.  So, I like to think of him as not my own child but as, like, a child that my dog might own.  So ‑‑ we have a dog.  So, I can relate.  So, it’s sort of a distant child in that way.

SARA TOMKO:  I can relate that way too.

QUESTION:  Thank you so much.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Next up is Jamie Steinberg, and Valerie Milano will be on deck.  Jamie, go ahead.

QUESTION:  I love getting to see Alan with Alice.  I just think it’s kind of, like, two comedy giants playing off of each other.  Talk a little bit, Alan, how much of your scenes are improv, how much of it is scripted, and just in general working with Alice.

ALAN TUDYK:  Working with Alice is fantastic.  I’ve loved her work for a very long time.  I’m a big fan of “Maisel,” and that she joined us this season was fantastic, and that she got to be my love interest was even more ‑‑ my love interest or just the object of my affections was brilliant.  It was a lot of fun.  Her relationship with Chris goes back a long way.  You can see it when the two of them are together.  They have a really strong friendship.  It was really fun to watch them, really more than anything, together.  And we embrace some in that scene, I’m remembering.  As far as improv goes, there’s leeway.  And everybody can speak to this because everybody does this.  Chris is a very generous creator in a lot of ways.  But as far as listening to the actors when we have dialogue that could possibly be a little more in our character voice, we have something, like, a word ‑‑ there’s a lot of stuff, like, from Harry that he’ll say, “Can I say this word instead of this word? because, the way that my process is, Harry wouldn’t say this word.  Can we substitute this word or this phrasing?”  There’s a lot of that.

And then we usually have, I know for myself, an opportunity to, kind of, play, especially if it’s a joke.  If it’s just a joke, the punch line, you can do the punch line as many different ways as you want — or the out of the scene.  Yesterday, we were shooting something with a scene, and there was, like, “Oh, what if I’m sitting at my desk.  What if I had a glass of Alka‑Seltzer?  Yeah, can we get a glass of Alka‑Seltzer?  All right.  I’ll do the plop, plop, fizz, fizz, and I’ll be watching the fizzing of the thing, and it’s confusing to me why it’s floating and then have the scene.  Sara and I will have a scene, and then I’ll drink it, and it will be disgusting, and I’ll almost throw up.  I’ll sit there, fizzing through the scene.”  And then it was taking too long to get the Alka‑Seltzer because they had to go to the store.  I was, like, “Well, what if we do this with this, or what if we did this?”  And we’d just throw out ideas, and we came up with something that actually turned out to be more fun.  I know Alice herself does a lot of improv because you are comedy.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Oh, yeah.  Well, I was going to say ‑‑

ALAN TUDYK:  You are comedy.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  ‑‑ that is a really high praise coming from you, but there is something to say.  I mean, Chris is so generous.  Robbie is generous to the point that I’m testing it.  You say he gives us as many takes as we want as long as there’s a punch line, and I’m counting.  And, eventually, I’m going to find out how many is the most and is the cap for that because I’m getting to it, I feel like.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Well, Corey is the same way.  Corey had a scene last year where I was so confident in Corey’s improv abilities.  It was when he was interrogating the lanky stoner in that school classroom.  We wrote stuff, but I basically said to him, “This is going to be you.”  So, all of that stuff that was on the screen was just Corey being ridiculous.  So that was fun.

COREY REYNOLDS:  That is one of the best perks of this job for me.  During the course of my career, I’ve never had the opportunity to have as much influence over a character’s choices and voice, and that’s all a testament to Chris and Robbie and our leadership being open to allowing us to explore these different things.  And they are not all homeruns.  I’ll pitch something to him sometimes, like, “Hey, man, what do you think about this?  What if dah, dah, dah, dah, dah?”  And he’ll go, “Uhhhh,” when you know that that’s not necessary.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Let’s do another pitch first.  The Alan and Alice stuff, I will say ‑‑ they were doing one of the scenes that I’ve written, and I thought they should have a little fun.  So, I told the script supervisor, “I’m going to go in and maybe see if they can do the lab or whatever.  We can figure something out.”  She comes over, and she says, “Well, for me, I want to know what they are going to say.”  And I was, like, “I don’t know what they are going to say.  I don’t have it written.  I just figure these two people will come up with it.”  So, I just said to Alice, like ‑‑ I said, “Just ask Harry, like, does he like to travel and just see where it goes.”  And we laughed.  And they called “action,” and then Alan and Alice went on for between five and ten minutes before the scene started.  I can remember that.  It was unbelievable, something about (inaudible) and monkeys in cages.  It was unbelievable.  The first part of that show was 19 minutes long.

QUESTION:  The best SYFY for, like, a longer episode that time, can you just expand on that so we can fit in the improv?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  There’s a tremendous amount of ‑‑ actually, there’s a lot of incredible stuff that we can’t fit in the show from everybody, from everyone on this panel, I mean, just really great stuff.  You have to make your choices.  But, yeah, there’s a whole episode with all of their improv.  I’m sure somehow, we can piece that together.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  There’s a side show that I’m pitching with Corey, definitely, to get out of our ‑‑ because, like, we ‑‑ Corey and I were in one scene together so far this season, and I was, like, “Why don’t we get to do more episodes together, man?”  And then, when we started going back and improvising on top of each other, I was, like, “Oh, this is why.”

COREY REYNOLDS:  “Oh, this is why they don’t get us together.”  It takes me back to the bowling alley scenes, which is, I believe, my first day of filming.  And I think we went, like, three or four takes in before Robbie was, like, “Okay.  Guys, do you know what?  I think it’s important that we at least get one that’s, like, as written, you know, maybe just one.  Can we just get one?  Once we have one that’s on the page, we are good to go, but we should probably for safety.  Let’s get at least one that is what’s written,” because I think we just decided that “Oh, yeah, the script is just a suggestion.”  We just decided to go on our own little tangents there.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Having never worked with each other before at all.

COREY REYNOLDS:  It’s also the very first day.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  The behind‑the‑scenes arrest in Episode 10 from the first season ‑‑

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Yeah.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  ‑‑ Corey was arresting Alice.

COREY REYNOLDS:  Oh.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  And you were talking about pulling hair.  I think Alice ‑‑

COREY REYNOLDS:  Her fighting style was a mix of volleyball and capoeira or something like that.  It was just ridiculous stuff.

QUESTION:  Well, thank you all so much for bringing a little bit of levity to our lives during these times.  It means so much.

ALAN TUDYK:  Thank you.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Our next question comes from Valerie Milano, and Janice Malone is going to be on deck.  Valerie, go ahead.

QUESTION:  This question is probably mostly for Chris but if any of the talent wants to chime in.  In the last episode, Harry must rely on Asta and D’Arcy for survival.  How does that change the dynamics of the characters, and will we see more of this in the second season?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  That’s a good question.  That was in Episode 8, I think ‑‑

QUESTION:  Yes.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  ‑‑ and in 10 as well.  Asta depended on it for survival.  It’s an example of Harry’s growing emotional state and ability to process human emotions where, in the first season, he learns to love and learns what friendship is and connects him to Asta, which is what ends up saving the human race.  I think his journey in Season 2 is, sort of, extending that humanity to people outside of Asta.  So, learning empathy and trying to realize that maybe there’s other people in this world ‑‑ at the beginning of it anyway, other people in the world who he can maybe care about as well in addition to Asta.  So that definitely continues into the second season, and it is going to be a slow burn.  We don’t want to do it too quickly where, suddenly, he’s caring about everybody because a lot of the comedy goes away at that point.  That’s not really going to happen until the very end of the series where he, sort of, figured it all out.  But, yeah, we are going to continue that.  As far as has it changed anything, I don’t think ‑‑ D’Arcy saving his life I don’t think really did much for him.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  No.  Almost, like, less.  I want to hear from Sara because, like, I’ve seen this from what I’ve seen in their interactions this season, that Sara ‑‑ the Asta‑Harry connection, it’s super deep now, and there’s a familiarity that is familial.  I just watch.  Like, he is getting to know the world, holding hands with you, and it’s, like, he has this safety net in you, and it’s really touching to watch.

SARA TOMKO:  Yeah.  There’s this really beautiful scene we have together once again in a really cool location where we were looking out over the lake.  In Season 1, we are looking out over the mountains while I’m barefoot in the snow, and in Season 2, it’s kind of the summer version of that, not quite barefoot but still looking out over a body of water, over the lake.  And we have this great conversation about that family is not just who you are blood‑related to, but it’s chosen and that there are people in your lives that you really care for, and you need to figure out who those people are.  And it kind of occurs to Asta, after she has a talk with her dad, that she’s maybe the only one that Harry cares for, and that’s a lot of responsibility when she’s got the whole world on her shoulders.  So, then she starts, kind of, pushing him out of the nest, which Alice is right.  We started having what felt like a mother‑son relationship a little bit.  She was, like, “You’ve got to get out there and meet people.”  And she has to have conversations with him, talking to him about his feelings, about pain, about fear, about family.  All the while, she’s still trying to connect with her daughter, and she’s also still learning about how to ask for help.  She’s going to, you know, without telling any spoilers, end up coming to D’Arcy for guidance in a way she never has before.  So, I think, once again, you are going to see Harry and Asta in this very similar trajectory in Season 2 where they are both still learning how to reach out and ask for help, which is pretty special.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Very well put.  Also, I think, in a way, Harry is so childlike.  I think it’s, sort of, Asta learning how to be a mother.

SARA TOMKO:  Yeah.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  And if she ever comes back around and has a real relationship with Jay, she can take that learning that she’s gotten from Harry to be a better mother for Jay someday.

SARA TOMKO:  Definitely.

COREY REYNOLDS:  She will be prepared to change Harry at some point.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Absolutely.

COREY REYNOLDS:  If he needs a change of some kind.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yeah.

SARA TOMKO:  What did you say, Corey?  What did you say down there?  Can you hear me at the angle you are at?

MATTHEW LIFSON:  All right.  Our next question comes from Janice Malone, and Arlene Martinez will be on deck.  Janice, go ahead.

QUESTION:  Yes.  Hello.  This is such a fun show.  I’m so glad to see you guys come back for another season.  I’d just like to ask the entire panel here, has anyone ever, ever had what might be considered a UFO, extra‑terrestrial citing, or do you think you’ve ever met an extra‑terrestrial?

ALICE WETTERLUND:  I’ve done ‑‑ that’s a question an extra‑terrestrial would ask.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Yeah.  Does anybody else have anything?

ALAN TUDYK:  Chris.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  I did see a UFO once.  I was on my honeymoon.  I was at the beach.  I told this before, but I’ll tell it again.  It was 10 o’clock at night in the Bahamas.  It was very, very dark.  You could see every star in the sky, and suddenly, this star on the horizon started rising up.  We looked at it, like, “Why is that moving?”  And then it came at us, and within two or three seconds, it was above us.  It was a triangular shape with, like, six lights on the bottom of it.  It was light in the front, and it hit us right in the face.  The ship didn’t hit us.  The light hit us.  That would be a story.  And then it kept going, and that was it.  And even in that moment, I’m, like, “Did we just see that?”  I made a mental note to not let myself forget the fact that that was real.  So, I don’t know what it was, but it was certainly alien.

ALAN TUDYK:  And it made no noise, right?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  It made no noise.  It was literally upon us from the horizon to above us in about three seconds.  It just moved way faster than anything that we know of as humans on this earth.  So that definitely happened to me.  And, honestly, doing this show, I’ve met a lot of people who have come up to me and said, “You know, I’ll tell you, I saw this thing.”  A lot of people have seen this stuff, and there’s starting to be less stigma around it now.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Yeah.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  People are starting to come out with it.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Well, also, the government was, like, “Yeah, aliens are real.  Sorry.”  So that helps.

COREY REYNOLDS:  I mean, statistically speaking, it is virtually impossible that there isn’t alien life in the universe.  I think the biggest question comes the distance between stars or the distance between space time of getting to a place where they could actually get here or we could go there.  However, if you are talking about a civilization that might be millions or billions of years older than humanity, who is to say that they haven’t mastered space time travel, you know.  I think you’d be an idiot to think that we are the only intelligent life in the universe.  It’s stupid to think that.

ALAN TUDYK:  We are intelligent?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  I don’t think we can compare it to the (inaudible) movie when you taught him that (inaudible.)

COREY REYNOLDS:  Yeah.

QUESTION:  Thank you.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  It looks like we have time for one final question, and that is going to come from Arlene Martinez.  Arlene, go ahead.

COREY REYNOLDS:  No pressure, Arlene.

QUESTION:  Hi.  Nice to meet you all.  I was just going to ask you about what she just asked you guys about, UFOs, if you guys actually believe in it because I have a husband who is actually in Space Force, and we have arguments every time that we watch shows like this.  It’s, like, “No, there’s this.  There’s that.”  And he was actually watching, me with him, this show.  He’s, like, “Oh, my gosh.  So much,” and, like, “What do you guys” ‑‑ you know, he said about his experience, but I know we are not the only ones.  That’s my argument with my husband.  But do you actually believe there’s aliens out there?

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Wait.  So, your husband is Space Force and doesn’t believe in aliens?

QUESTION:  He always has an explanation for everything.  He actually works for space, the government.  So, he watches satellites.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  So, he’s a scientist, essentially?

QUESTION:  No, I don’t call him a scientist, but he just watches what happened here if we get missiles, and he just stops the missiles.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Yeah.  I think it’s the difference between believing and needing evidence.  If you need evidence, it’s not, like, a believer faith, right?

QUESTION:  Uh‑huh.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  I, for instance, have never had any alien experience or anything close to an alien experience, but I’m not closed off to the idea that there are ‑‑ I mean, I just know that the more science progresses and the more astronomy progresses and the exploration of physics, the less we know we know of things we thought we knew about.  And, so, what’s the point of saying there’s no ‑‑ there’s an explanation for everything?  I mean, okay.  Sure.  But, like, we don’t have all of the explanations yet, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t mean we are deficient as an intelligent species.  It just means where we are.

COREY REYNOLDS:  Apparently, there are.

SARA TOMKO:  Right now, we are a floating ball in the sky in a galaxy.  Do you know what I mean?  It’s freaking crazy.  So, I feel like our existence is alien, and maybe there’s theories, and everybody has their opinions, but nobody knows what we are doing here.  So why not?  There’s so many options, so many different stories to listen to.  Everybody has a different story to tell, and it doesn’t mean that we should be pointing fingers and saying, “No, you are wrong.”  You both are right, you and your husband.  And we all have a feeling and a way that we are existing in this world, but I personally think we are all alien.

COREY REYNOLDS:  If you think about it like this for a second, if you think about, like, the ocean ‑‑ right? ‑‑ to fish, we live in outer space, right?  And to fish, sometimes they get caught.  And you weigh them, and you measure them and this and that, and then you throw them back into the water.  And that fish probably swims down to other fish.  He’s, like, “Holy shit.  You are not going to believe this.  I was just abducted by these humans, and they probed me, they measured me, they took my weight, and then they just returned me.”  Like, “Dude, shut the fuck up.  You didn’t get taken into space or anything like that.”  Do you know what I mean?  So, to think that we couldn’t see that relatively happening to humanity as well like we are in space to fish.  Do you know what I’m saying?  We live in an environment that they can’t breathe in, that they can’t stay in for any sustained amount of time.  To be in this environment, they would need a life‑support system.  We are in space to them.  So, relatively speaking, I have no doubt that there’s something that comes down here and picks us up and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and measures us and probes us and sticks shit in our asses, all of this stuff.  And they are just, like, “Oh, okay.  All right.”  And then they just toss them back.  I don’t see how that’s any different.  I think, if you use that as a metric, it’s clear to see that it’s absolutely possible, not only possible but quite feasible, that something like that happens to humanity.

ALAN TUDYK:  I need to get you to stop probing your fish.  That seems very invasive and unnecessary.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Hey, don’t knock it.

COREY REYNOLDS:  What did you learn from shoving your hand up that fish’s ass?

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  Just weigh it and put it back.  What are you doing?

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Oh, I’m sorry.  If something is in front of me, I’m going to probe it.

COREY REYNOLDS:  Sorry.  This hand ain’t made for probing.  Sorry.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  I don’t think we can top that.

COREY REYNOLDS:  This finger is radicular.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  So, I’m going to thank all of our guests.

SARA TOMKO:  A fish’s body, a fish’s choice.’ALICE WETTERLUND:  And you can keep that in.  You keep that in.  You write that stuff.

COREY REYNOLDS:  Right?  Absolutely.

CHRIS SHERIDAN:  It’s why fish are growing feet on land and fight us.

COREY REYNOLDS:  Absolutely.  This is the beginning of a giant battle that’s going to take place and what they feel is an interest, like, in space battle.  They’ve got their own Space Force.  They already have their own opinions about humans.  There we go.

MATTHEW LIFSON:  Well, I think we are ending on the highest of notes.  So, I’m going to thank the panelists.  That concludes the session for “Resident Alien.”  We will take a short break and pick back up with NCB’s “American Auto” at 10:45.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  And I’m going to be there for that too.  See you there.

Scifivision Interview with Chris Sheridan

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