Actress Aileen Wu talks to The Inside Reel about approach, movement, physicality and approaching mythology in regards to her role as Navarro in “Alien: Romulus” now available from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
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00:00Oh, my God!
00:01Annie, open the door.
00:02We need you to open that door right now.
00:03Come on and open the door!
00:04Annie!
00:05Run.
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04:21What do you mean there's something in the water?
04:36I don't know.
04:37There's just something in the water.
04:38Run.
04:39Well, it's interesting because when Kaylee, when she first, for her first, for Pacific
04:48Rim, she and I talked before that came out, and it was interesting because that was her
04:52first big thing, and it was just sort of how do you make those little movements, how do
04:57you make those little ideas, those little eye gestures or stillness work?
05:02And that's what, with Navarro, there's a stillness and there's a specificity that she has when,
05:09as you're playing her, as you're walking down the ladder, as you're moving in and out, can
05:14you talk about movement?
05:15Because movement can say as much within film as the words.
05:20Yeah.
05:21Absolutely.
05:22Oh, such good questions.
05:24So, for Navarro's physicality, I have to be honest, Carlos did such a good job with costume
05:33design, and once we did a couple of fittings, I really started to find her, because clothes
05:41say so much about a person, especially in their circumstances where nobody has any money,
05:48nobody has any choices.
05:50When the choices are so limited, what these characters choose say a lot.
05:55So once I had the leather jacket on and the leather pants and the gloves and the little
06:00necklace and the watch too, the watch played a lot, kind of how she carries herself really
06:08came through.
06:09And I felt a lot like my father.
06:13My father wears these big jackets, and even though he's a businessman, he wears the same
06:22white t-shirt every day.
06:24He's recently moved on to colored t-shirts, but it's the same thing every day.
06:29And he kind of walks around with this power and ownership.
06:39It's his armor.
06:40Yes.
06:42And this confidence, I think, she really needed inside the Corbellan, because she is the pilot.
06:50She's so familiar with this huge piece of machine.
06:56So it was just like, and I'm so thankful for my theater training for this.
07:03I carry this huge belief that repetition is everything.
07:08If you can repeat it, whether it be words or a movement, if you can repeat it, repeat
07:12it, repeat it, your body learns it, and it looks so natural.
07:17So like those ladder sequences and those like firing up the ship scene, I just, I loved
07:28every time Fede would call reset off screen, I'll be like, oh, thank God, I get to do it
07:34again.
07:35Call reset again.
07:36I get to do it again.
07:37I'm sure there are people, plenty of people on set who wanted to move on.
07:41I was like, if I get to do it again, it'll be better than the last time.
07:48Help me!
08:05Are you sure you want to do this?
08:09Because it feels close to, I mean, because there's so much expectation with this kind
08:13of film, plus with Ridley, you know, that, all that.
08:17And yet there, and especially, and also the camera thing, but like that first sequence,
08:21when you guys are going up into the stratosphere, you feel sort of that adrenaline, but it's
08:26all in the practicality of it.
08:29Can you talk about expectation?
08:30Because it is an alien movie.
08:32I mean, and it's sort of like, literally like, it jumps over all and goes straight from the
08:39OG.
08:40I mean, could you talk about that?
08:42Did you have any conception of the alien world?
08:44Were you a fan?
08:46Were you aware of the different iterations?
08:50And does that help?
08:51Or does that hinder, knowing the mythology?
08:54For sure.
08:55Oh, great.
08:57So I didn't know much about the alien franchise before booking this role.
09:02I did watch the first film to prep for my audition.
09:05And then I watched all the other films to prep for shooting.
09:11For that specific firing up the ship and going up into space, I remember rewatching all of
09:21the flying sequences in every sci-fi film I could find.
09:27We're talking-
09:28Which one jumps out?
09:29Which one jumps out though, Autumn?
09:30Oh my God.
09:31I love how Firefly highlighting sequence work.
09:41I love that show.
09:43It's yeah.
09:44And I tried to, I think the best one I could find from Star Wars is probably Rogue One
09:54or from Mandalorian.
09:57It's just like watching those videos from YouTube on repeat and trying to find, okay,
10:03what is it?
10:05What is it that is so natural about it?
10:08And trying to find something in my own life that I can relate to.
10:12And I was like, I cook a lot.
10:15It's like when I'm cooking, I'm not really thinking about it.
10:18Like I could have a whole conversation with my husband as I'm chopping things and cooking
10:23things up.
10:24It feels like that.
10:27So instant.
10:28Yes, exactly.
10:30But I think what really helped was when they brought in a real pilot to come speak to me
10:37about, we kind of broke down the lines, okay, what does, why do you have to fire up navigation
10:45before you fire up the hydraulic pump?
10:49Like mechanically, technically speaking from the ship's point of view, what is happening
10:53to the machine as you're pressing each button?
10:57Having that concept living in my brain and going through it over and over again on my
11:02own time, I think at the end, we had the perfect formula to make it work.