Timothy Olyphant to star in Noah Hawley’s Alien TV series for FX

Deadline reports that Timothy Olyphant has joined the cast of Noah Hawley’s upcoming Alien TV series.

Timothy Olyphant joining the Alien franchise is really all I need to hear, but Deadline also has a few details on his character. According to the outlet, Olyphant will play Kirsch, a synth who acts as a mentor and trainer for Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a hybrid meta-human who has the brain and consciousness of a child but the body of an adult.

The rest of the main cast includes Alex Lawther as CJ, Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, Essie Davis as Dame Silvia, Adarsh Gourav as Slightly, and Kit Young as Tootles. The Alien series takes place on Earth and is set roughly 70 years in the future. From Deadwood to Justified to The Santa Clarita Diet to The Mandalorian, I’ve loved Timothy Olyphant in just about everything, so my anticipation for the Alien TV series just shot up considerably.

Production on the series actually got underway this summer just four days after the SAG-AFTRA strike began. Filming was able to continue for more than a month with cast members affiliated with Equity before it had to shut down. Noah Hawley recently said that production on the Alien TV series will resume early next year. “We’re getting back into production as quickly as possible,” Hawley said. “We’re shooting in Bangkok, a half a world away; shooting again in the new year. I got some footage. Some of the first hour was shot before we had to shutdown. It’s stuff to play with and edit. I’m excited to get back in there.“

Noah Hawley has teased that the series will open up the typically confined stakes of the franchise. “The alien stories are always trapped … trapped in a prison, trapped in a spaceship,” Hawley said. “I thought it would be interesting to open it up a little bit so that the stakes of ‘What happens if you can’t contain it?’ are more immediate.“

Corporations, including the infamous Weylan-Yutani, are also said to play a major role in the series. “In the movies, we have this Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which is clearly also developing artificial intelligence—but what if there are other companies trying to look at immortality in a different way, with cyborg enhancements or transhuman downloads?” Hawley said. “Which of those technologies is going to win? It’s ultimately a classic science fiction question: does humanity deserve to survive? As Sigourney Weaver said in that second movie, ‘I don’t know which species is worse. At least they don’t f*ck each other over for a percentage.’“

Are you excited for Timothy Olyphant to join the Alien TV series?