Cailee Spaeney Watched Sigourney Weaver's Aliens Over and Over to Prepare for Romulus

The actress from Priscilla and Civil War takes over the role of the latest installment in Ridley Scott's franchise.

Nowadays, younger generations of actors are taking franchises by storm, and each with their own method. Some time ago, Anya Taylor-Joy admitted not having studied the performance of his elder sister, Charlize TheronIn Fury Road to interpret Furiosa in the last film of the saga of George Miller.

A few weeks before the release ofAlien: Romulusseventh addition to the franchise started in 1979 by Ridley Scott, Cailee Spaeny admits to having done the complete opposite. Led by the Uruguayan Fede Alvarezshe carries this new film, taking up the torch passed by Sigourney Weaver (a.k.a Ellen Ripley), star ofAlien, the eighth passenger, ofAliens, the returnofAlien 3 and D'Alien, the resurrection.

New film, new generation. Cailee Spaeny will lead a “a group of young travelers confronted with the most terrifying life form in the universe”. But like the plot, which Fede Alvarez thought of as a “back to the first movie”Cailee Spaeny does not hide the fact that she re-immersed herself in the films with Sigourney Weaver to build her character, Rain Carradine, a sort of alter-ego of Ellen Ripley.

“I watched his performance on repeat for monthsshe confides to TotalFilm. I was hoping something would somehow seep through.”

However, the young actress who cut her teeth in the Priscilla of Sofia Coppola and in the Civil War ofAlex Garlandwas not impressed by this substantial inheritance.

“I never felt intimidatedshe says.. This role was not written for a woman, so there was a real freedom. And because Sigourney put so much of herself into this role, it allows all the other women who come into this franchise to never feel that weird weight or pressure of playing a female lead.”

The twenty-five-year-old actress refers to the first drafts of the script for Eighth passengerin which Lieutenant Ripley is conceived as a male role. In the end, the character is feminized and it is Sigourney Weaver who gets the role thanks to her rather androgynous features. The rest is up to a story that Spaeny seems ready to jump into with both feet.

To discover Cailee Spaeny's performance in Alien: Romulus in theaters, we will have to wait until August 14. Here is the trailer for the film: