Next week Disney+ launches an ambitious new series with Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth. The series debuts with a two-episode premiere on August 13, 2025. Ahead of its launch we sat down with cast members Samuel Blenkin who plays Boy Kavalier and Babou Ceesay who plays Morrow. Over the next few days in the run up to the premiere we’ll be sharing what they had to say about joining this legendary franchise.
When the mysterious deep space research vessel USCSS Maginot crash-lands on Earth, “Wendy” (Sydney Chandler) and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat in FX’s “Alien: Earth.”
Check out the series trailer in the player below and scroll down for our chat with Samuel about his role as Boy Kavalier, the CEO of rival corporation Prodigy.
NB: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Neil Vagg (GYCO): I feel like whenever Boy Kavalier walks in to a scene he’s the biggest mind in the room as well as the biggest ego. But he’s also unpredictable. I watch those scenes and I’m on the edge of my seat thinking I don’t actually know what he’s going to do next.
So much of how his emotions and his actions are communicated through your facial expressions and I was wondering did you do much experimentation between seeing the character on the page and first getting on set to try and figure out exactly how emotive you could be and how big you could take the performance?
Samuel Blenkin: I’d like to say that I did do preparation, but I’d be lying [laughs]. No, I’m joking. I mentioned earlier about outside in and it’s a really interesting thing for me. One thing that I love [is] when you’re watching any kind of screen work and an actor takes a big swing. That’s just personally for me, something that I love because you know there’s a beautiful intimacy with the camera.
Obviously the camera loves interiority and is drawn to interiority. But I just love it when people take a big swing. So I read this character and saw an opportunity to play somebody who, if I could make it also grounded and real, you know, would be able to genuinely take those things. A lot of things came live like holding things with my feet or [how I was] sitting in chairs. Certain ways or getting on tables in certain ways. You know, I didn’t plan those things before the scene. They were things that came up because I felt like there was a sense of freedom and sense of play on, on set.
Sometimes you, as an actor, have to bring all of that yourself and it could sort of impose. I’m carving out space for me to do my work. But on this set, it was like, what I’m going to do next and I felt really honoured. I felt that was just I felt so trusted.
In the year 2120, the 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 into Prodigy City, “Wendy” and the other hybrids encounter mysterious life forms more terrifying than anyone could have ever imagined.
Led by Chandler, the series showcases an expansive international cast, which includes Timothy Olyphant (“Kirsh”), Alex Lawther (“Hermit”), 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”).
FX’s Alien: Earth is created for television and executive produced by Peabody and Emmy® Award-winning Noah Hawley. Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Joseph Iberti, Dana Gonzales and Clayton Krueger also serve as executive producers. “Alien: Earth” is produced by FX Productions.
