Noah Hawley had no plans to appear in his new FX series Alien: Earth; however, things changed quickly when an opportunity revealed itself.
Hawley will make his acting debut in the premiere episodes of the sci-fi series he created (based on Alien, by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett), wrote, showran, and executive produced. By his side, and also in his first acting role, Hawley’s son Lev, 12. The elder Hawley will play Wendy’s (Sydney Chandler) father in a flashback, and Lev as a young CJ Hermit (Alex Lawther), Wendy’s brother.
“No. I mean, I’ve never done it before. It was not my goal,” Hawley told Deadline at an event in May when asked whether he had always planned to appear in the series.
He continued, “I have this maxim where I always talk about trying to combine maximum creativity with maximum efficiency. My son asked if there was a role for him, and I thought, ‘Well, he’s not right for any of the Lost Boys.’ But I wanted to see this brother-sister relationship in a flashback. I wasn’t going to write scenes for it because I wanted the emotional feeling of it. And so I thought, ‘Okay, well, he could play Alex at a young age, but then what am I going to do?’ Cast some day players to come in, when [Lev] has never acted before? I figured it would be easier if I did it. I get down on the floor with him and improvise, and I can make him relax. It felt like the best way to direct him.”
Noah Hawley (L), Lev Hawley (M) and Kyle Hawley (R) attend the “Alien: Earth” European Premiere at the Barbican Centre on July 29, 2025, in London, England.
Kate Green/Getty Images
Although Hawley Sr. may not have planned to act in his show, he now feels like it all turned out to be something special.
“There’s something nice and metaphorical about being my lead actor’s parent. Like, I’m the dad… Don’t look out for a lot of me in the show. I was trying to create an emotion and something that really felt lived in and authentic,” he reflected.
Alien: Earth will premiere with two episodes on Tuesday, August 12, at 8 p.m. ET on Hulu and the FX linear channel at 8 p.m. ET/PT in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. New episodes will drop on Tuesdays on Hulu at 8 p.m. ET and FX at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
The eight-episode first season is set in the year 2120, when Earth is governed by five corporations: Prodigy, Weyland-Yutani, Lynch, Dynamic, and Threshold. In this Corporate Era, cyborgs (humans with both biological and artificial parts) and synthetics (humanoid robots with artificial intelligence) exist alongside humans. But the game is changed when the wunderkind Founder and CEO of Prodigy Corporation unlocks a new technological advancement: hybrids (humanoid robots infused with human consciousness).
The first hybrid prototype, named Wendy, marks a new dawn in the race for immortality. After Weyland-Yutani’s spaceship collides with Prodigy City, Wendy and the other hybrids encounter mysterious life forms more terrifying than anyone could have ever imagined.
The cast also includes Timothy Olyphant (Kirsh), Samuel Blenkin (Boy Kavalier), Babou Ceesay (Morrow), Adrian Edmondson (Atom Eins), David Rysdahl (Arthur Sylvia), Essie Davis (Dame Sylvia), Lily Newmark (Nibs), Erana James (Curly), Adarsh Gourav (Slightly), Jonathan Ajayi (Smee), Kit Young (Tootles), Diêm Camille (Siberian), Moe Bar-El (Rashidi) and Sandra Yi Sencindiver (Yutani).
It was previously revealed that the series will feature 5 monsters, some of which have already made appearances in promotional assets. They are the Xenomorph, the face hugger, the Orchid, and the Eye Midge, all of which appeared in the official trailer.
