Alan Tudyk Credits His Wife for Stellar Resident Alien Directorial Debut: "It Was Two Tudyks"
Plus, Corey Reynolds discusses having "weird doctor" Harry back in the mix with the Mantid.
This story contains spoilers for Resident Alien Season 4, Episode 1, "Prisoners."
Watch out world, Harry Vanderspeigle is now behind the camera!
Actually, it's his alter ego, Resident Alien leading man Alan Tudyk, who's transitioning into the director's chair for the first two episodes of Season 4, "Prisoners" and "The Lonely Man."
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Way back in 2002, Tudyk first dipped his toe into the directing pool for Con Man, the web series he created. But he hasn't been back to it until now. It's Tudyk's episodes that open the season, revealing what's happened to Harry since he was trapped on the moon by the Greys, and his human visage was appropriated by the Mantid (voiced by Clancy Brown), a mantis-looking, shapeshifting alien who's assumed Harry's life in Patience, Colorado.
On the red carpet for the Resident Alien premiere, USA Insider spoke with Tudyk about directing his ensemble cast, the surprise support he had with him on set, and a bonus assessment by his co-star Corey Reynolds.
Alan Tudyk teases his favorite directorial moment in Episode 2
Tudyk took his opportunity to direct in Season 4 at the start, so he had ample pre-production time to plan both helming and acting in the first two episodes. He also brought in the big guns for help, his choreographer wife, Charissa Barton, an experience he described as having "two Tudyks" on the case.
"Technically, she's my assistant, I guess, which is the official name for her. But she's a director," Tudyk clarified. "She's directed more than me, so she was on set to watch."
He explained that she was with him during all of pre-production, and that her perspective was especially handy when he had to direct and act in a scene.
"When I was acting [she was] able to tell me, 'Yeah, that was a swing and a miss.' It was really great. We really enjoyed it," he said.
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With the first two episodes bursting with story reveals and big twists, we asked Tudyk if any particular scene was especially near and dear to his heart, and he teased one in "The Lonely Man" involving Enver Gjokaj's Joseph, the Grey alien-human hybrid, and Asta (Sara Tomko).
"There's this one scene... I had so many ideas about that thing, and I like how it turned out," he said.
He added that directing really had him going back to his own early inspirations, like early television comedies.
"It's so interesting learning your own [skills]," he mused. "I've always been a big fan of Mel Brooks and I used to love old-school TV. Before there was YouTube, I would go to the Museum of Radio and Television and watch those old shows. And I realized, coming into this, especially with that scene, I kept trying to tell them, 'I want it like this and this...,'" he explained, moved his body in a theatrical way.
"I'm trying to make a proscenium," he said of the old-school blocking he tried to impart to his cast. "And there's like double takes and stuff that just aren't the show," he said of some of his comedy direction. "But I like how it turned out. It was a fun, fun evolution."
Corey Reynolds is happy to have "weird doctor" Harry back with the Mantid
A supportive voice for everything Tudyk does was Corey Reynolds, aka Sheriff Mike Thompson. As his co-star, sometimes scene partner, and the receiver of his direction this season, Reynolds said he loved getting to watch Tudyk subsume himself in the antics of the Mantid acting as Harry.
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"I think it's so interesting that we watched an alien pretending to be an alien, pretending to be a human, and to see the show kind of get reset, in some ways, with that original structure of the weird doctor," he said of the Mantid following in alien Harry's footsteps. "I also think it's a unique way to see how much Harry has changed, because you see the Mantid and the Mantid is what Harry was like in the beginning: very cold, very mechanical. And watching Alan flip-flop like that while directing the episode was pretty amazing."
Season 4 of Resident Alien drops new episodes Fridays on USA Network and SYFY. All episodes will be available to stream exclusively on Peacock one week after they air.
