Maybe the first thing you’ll notice about the Alien: Earth character Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin) is that he is super duper obsessed with Peter Pan. The former child prodigy fancies himself the J.M. Barrie antihero, naming his research base “Neverland” and treating each of the hybrids on the FX sci-fi series as his “Lost Boys.”
The second thing you’ll notice, though, is that Boy Kavalier uses his bare feet almost like additional hands. We’ve seen him laying on his back, holding a tablet with his feet during video calls with rival corporate head Yutani (Sandra Yi Sencindiver). He’ll bash at key boards and view screens with his toes. Essentially, Boy Kavalier is using every digit at his disposal and it sometimes feels a little bit like a passive aggressive attack.
When DECIDER caught up with the stars of Alien: Earth at a recent press junket, we simply had to ask Samuel Blenkin about where this decision to “work” with his feet came from. After co-star Timothy Olyphant stopped laughing, Blenkin finally revealed the rather detailed backstory to Boy Kavalier’s fancy footwork on Alien: Earth.
“I felt like it would be really fun if he was somebody who felt like he could recline and totally relax in whatever way he wanted to on set,” Blenkin said. “So I was just going for that languid kind of physicality.”
“I just started talking to Suttirat Larlarb, who’s the wonderful costume designer for the show, and there was this pajama idea that was being floated around because of Peter Pan. Then we were just having a chat and I think — I don’t want to take full credit for the idea, but just from that conversation — it’s like, well, bare feet. Why would he bother to wear shoes? You know, the guy owns everything, so why would he bother?” he said. “And that really unlocked the character for me.”
As you’ll continue to see in the weeks ahead, Boy Kavalier seems to relish putting people off-guard with his barefoot approach to life and, indeed, business. It’s a character choice that ironically gives Boy Kavalier higher status than anyone else in the room.
“I basically got to walk on set and be like, ‘Welcome to my living room. Now tell me what you want and I’ll shoot you down and quip you with an amazing line,'” Blenkin said. “Yeah. I felt so lucky to have that sort of physical freedom on set.”
While Blenkin admitted that some moments were scripted, others emerged from improvisation.
“Yeah, a couple of things happened that weren’t planned. Like holding the iPad out with my feet,” he said. “That was just a moment of madness.”
“Or you pointing with your feet,” Alien: Earth co-star Babou Ceesay said, referencing a future episode. “I love that.”
“Oh, pointing with the feet, all that kind of madness,” Blenkin said.
“Yeah,” Olyphant said, jokingly. “Hence now people say you were ‘working with your feet.'”
(Okay, but is there a better way to put it?)
Alien: Earth returns next Tuesday night on FX and Hulu.