FX’s ALIEN TV Show Casts BLACK MIRROR And FARGO Star David Rysdahl

The actor becomes the latest to join Noah Hawley’s small screen take on the classic sci-fi franchise.

By Ryan Scott · @RyanScottWrites · November 28, 2023, 6:41 PM EST
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Image courtesy of Hulu

The cast for FX’s long-in-the-works Alien TV show continues to ramp up now that the Screen Actors Guild strike has been resolved. To that end, Noah Hawley’s upcoming small-screen take on the classic sci-fi/horror franchise has added David Rysdahl to the ensemble.

Deadline reports that Rysdahl will be a series regular but that details on his character are being kept under wraps. That said, it marks a reunion for the actor with both Hawley and FX as he previously starred on the Fargo TV show. He’s also no stranger to genre fans, having starred in Black Mirror as well as last year’s underappreciated thriller No Exit, which was released directly to Hulu. The actor also recently appeared in Christopher Nolan’s smash hit Oppenheimer, which is one of the biggest movies of the year.

The cast for the series also includes Sydney Chandler as a meta-human named Wendy, Alex Lawther as a soldier named CJ, Samuel Blenkin as a CEO named Boy Kavalier, Essie Davis as Dame Silvia, Adarsh Gourav as someone named Slightly, and Kit Young as the peculiarly named Tootles. We also recently learned that Timothy Olyphant (Justified, The Mandalorian) has been added to the cast as well. This thing is shaping up nicely. Ridley Scott, who directed the original Alien, is also on board as an executive producer.

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Disney first announced the series way back in 2020 and it has been slow going in development ever since. The original plan was to film this year for a release sometime in 2024. Unfortunately, the aforementioned Screen Actors Guild strike, coupled with the Writers Guild of America strike, delayed things significantly. The show is now expected to arrive sometime in 2025.

Little has been revealed regarding the show’s plot but it is said to take place on Earth decades before the events of the first film. So this is seemingly going to be closer to Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as opposed to James Cameron’s Aliens, for example. This also isn’t the only thing that fans of the franchise have to look forward to in the near future as director Fede Alvarez has already wrapped production on a new film that is set to hit theaters next summer. It will take place between the events of Alien and Aliens. In short, Xenomorph lovers will have their fill over the next couple of years.

The Alien TV show is expected to premiere on FX in 2025.