About halfway through Alien: Earth Episode 7 “Emergence,” the inevitable happens. Arthur Sylvia (David Rysdahl), who was attacked by a Facehugger in last week’s episode of the FX show, enjoys a few moments of fresh air before succumbing to the next grisly stage of a Xenomorph’s life cycle.

**Spoilers for Alien: Earth Episode 7 “Emergence,” now streaming on Hulu**

“Everyone knows that I’m gonna get chest-bursted,” David Rysdahl said over Zoom a few weeks ago, referring to the way in which anyone who has seen any of the Alien movies — or pop culture moments like the end of Spaceballs — is primed for Arthur’s fate.

Indeed, about halfway through Alien: Earth Episode 7, Arthur Sylvia dies when a baby Xenomorph burst free from his chest. What makes the moment all the more darkly comic and poignantly tragic is the fact that he’s just had a tender moment with hybrids Slightly (Adarsh Gourav) and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi), reassuring the panicked boys that everything’s going to be okay.

“Noah just loves to dig it in,” Rysdahl said, referring to Alien: Earth creator Noah Hawley. “Like, even the hand-holding at the end.”

“It’s so darkly funny…and sad to have that moment be his last.”

DECIDER spoke with Rysdahl about what it was like having an iconic Facehugger on his face, shooting his gory death scene, and even going on “fake dates” with co-star Essie Davis, who played his coworker and wife, Dame Sylvia…

DECIDER: My first question for you is about working with Essie Davis, who is playing your wife. You guys have this sweet relationship, but I’m just curious, did you guys talk about who these people were before they joined Prodigy? Do you guys have a backstory for them and how do you see their relationship?

DAVID RYSDAHL: Oh, yeah, Essie’s the kind of actor that loves talking about backstory, as do I, so we’d go on fake dates in Bangkok, you know, and talk about how we met. She has more power within Prodigy than I do. She’s a little more senior in the organization, so we talked about how I got the job, it was through her. I am a good technician, but she is the brains behind much of the theory behind all of it. It’s such juicy material, the relationship of a couple within a work relationship. Like, what’s said at home versus what can be said in the workplace. So we tried to make it as specific as possible so that felt lived in when we were on camera together. We don’t get too much time together, really. We want to feel that, even those small moments, there’s a big history and a big past between them. So then what happens in 6, you feel it. You feel like a betrayal’s happened. In my opinion, anyway.

In Episode 6, before everything goes down, you have that great scene with Hermit, where you’re sort of very subtly hinting at him, like, “Yeah, we’re doing some messed up stuff with these kids, and you should get your sister out.” I totally understand why he turns off Wendy’s tracker, but why did he do so for all of the kids? It creates more problems down the line. I’m just curious about his impulse to take all six of them offline.

I think Arthur really goes through a crisis of faith throughout the season. He starts the season really believing in the science and what they’re doing, and then realizes that he’s given all this power to a corrupt little man who’s gonna abuse it. At the beginning of the season, I kept on saying, “I’m a scientist. These are hybrids, they’re not kids.” And then I see this brother of this little girl comes in, and he’s like, “This is my sister.” And I’m like, “Yes, these have real families, these are real people, what have we done?” And that’s not just for Wendy, it’s for all the kids. So I think it’s an impulsive choice, but it comes from a subconscious struggle that’s reached the surface, finally, in that moment.

In Episode 7, there’s that scene on the beach when he comes to, and he’s so tender with Slightly and Smee in a way I don’t think we’ve seen any of the characters, including Dame Sylvia, be with these hybrids. Do you think that over the course of the season, he begins to see them more as children? Has he always had that capacity?

Yeah, Noah and I talked about him going from scientist to father in the arc of the season. And in that moment, it’s very simple for him. There’s these two young kids who are deeply troubled, something’s going very wrong, and my father instincts have taken over. And so I’m no longer a scientist, seeing them as hybrids, I’m seeing them as two young kids who I need to protect.

When you have the Facehugger on your face, how much of that was a dummy? How much of that was you physically having a Facehugger on you while the boys are carrying you through the jungle? I’m very curious about the logistics of the whole situation.

Yeah, of course. So, anything that’s close up, that I’m on the ground, is me. Anything that’s being carried is a dummy. Because I’m a little heavier than the dummy is, and so they don’t want it to look like the hybrids are struggling because they’re supposed to be hyper-strong, right? So WETA and this whole practical effects team —they do wonderful work — they made a body double of me, which was very strange to see. There’s so many selfies of me sitting next to this dead Arthur. [Laughs]

So anytime they were close up, though, a) it helps them as actors to have a real person there, b) it’s good for me. I think it looks better still and it just brings more authenticity. And it’s good for me to have that experience so that when I do have it taken off, something’s happened to me as an actor. I’ve spent days with this Facehugger on my face and it does do something to you, to imagine. I mean, in [Episode] 6, when it comes on me, and the proboscis is going down into you… I had nightmares that night. Because we shot sequentially, then [in Episode] 7, you can just trust that your body’s already gone through that. You can just let it be whatever it is in that moment, it’s gonna be truthful and right.

I do have sort of a dorky, nerdy question. Because as a kid, like, watching Alien, I’m always so curious, viscerally, what is it like to have a Facehugger on your face? Does it smell funny? Is it heavy?

So they have like five different kinds. So the one that breathes, you know, later in [Episode] 7, that’s a different one than the one that they fling at you. And then the one they fling at you is different than the one they actually attach to you. So they did a fling one, which is actually a guy with a little stick and a puppet and then they smash cut that with one that’s already tied to you. They put little rubber bands [on the Facehugger] and they have shaped it around, like, an athletic cup, and they’ve fixed rubber around it. So it smells like rubber and a lot of KY jelly. Like you’re coated in KY jelly, your hair is. And it has a smell of you. You’re breathing into it for a whole day. So it’s not a great smell and there’s a visceral reaction. The first time, it’s like really exciting. You’re like, “I have a Facehugger on me!” On the third day, you’re like, “Oh, gosh, I have a Facehugger on me. Goddamn.”

Going back to the beach scene, I really think it’s darkly funny that he tells the kids it’s going to be okay, and then...the chest burster.

[Laughs] Yeah.

Can you talk about filming that?

I remember reading the script. Noah just loves to dig it in. Like, even the hand-holding at the end, because the audience is ahead of it. You know, unlike the first movie, nobody knows what’s gonna happen in that first movie when they watched it, but everyone knows that I’m gonna get chest-bursted. What’s interesting is the relationships that happen in that final moment. Like, he becomes a father. It’s so darkly funny, I agree with you, and sad to have that moment be his last.

Filming it, so we’ve done the whole season, and we’re down now, and it’s hot. But it’s so alive on that beach. Like, the tide’s coming in, the sun’s changing constantly, there’s rain. So you’re battling the elements. I love that. Because I feel like everyone’s ready. You have to be ready for the moment or it’ll go past you. So the camera guys, this guy Ross, and the DP, David Franco, and Dana, the director, everyone is so harshly intensely focused. There’s a little stress involved, which is perfect for what’s happening in the scene. And then those two boys, Adarsh and Jonathan, have such a beautiful innocence about them and you’re watching them become corrupted. They’re the playful-est hybrids the whole season and then they go through the hardest arc, in my opinion. That anguish is just on their faces. So I really tried to just allow my body to be present with whatever’s happening. Then with the elements, with what I’ve already gone through for six months, and with these two little boys, then I let the scene, the words that Noah’s written, just take me to where I’m supposed to go. So, as an actor, I always let that be very simple. Like, don’t overthink this scene. Be grounded, be a father, and listen and react.

You keep referring to Adarsh and Jonathan playing these boys. On set, working with these actors who are adults off-screen, what was it like to see them take on those innocent personalities? Did you feel like a father? Did a kind of paternalistic feeling towards these actors carry over?

Yeah, I think it always carries over, in a way, to your relationships with other actors on set. Jonathan would start to be silly about five minutes before the take and start to play these games. Adarsh, especially later, he’s being tormented, so he would spend time by himself and hearing Babou’s voice in his earphones and stuff, Everyone has a different process, but you do feel on set, like, “Wow, I do feel fatherly now towards you.” Like, even though we’re kind of the same age, there’s a sense of that that carries over. Then you go out, and you just become your actor self again, but while you’re on set, it’s a sacred space of play and imagination, and there are relationships that are in the script that bleed out into your real relationships. That’s part of the beauty of it, too. You get to kind of explore these strange dynamics that you would never have in real life and allow that to then feed back into the work.

This interview has been edited and formatted for clarity.