‘Resident Alien’ Stars Reflect on Steamy Scenes, Killer Outtakes, and Heartbreaking Moments on Set After the Final Season [Exclusive]

Summary

• Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with the cast of Resident Alien at San Diego Comic-Con 2025.
• The team behind the Syfy comedy series reflects on the bittersweet end of the show.
• In this interview, showrunner Chris Sheridan discusses how he anticipated Season 4 being the final season, allowing him to craft a satisfying conclusion, Alan Tudyk discusses his dual role as an actor and director, and the crew share behind-the-scenes moments and challenges.

For the cast of Resident Alien, the chance to sit down and talk about Season 4 of the comedy-sci-fi series was bittersweet, as it was recently announced that the show was canceled by the USA Network. For fans, a show’s cancellation is a bummer, but for the talent involved, it signifies the end of a tight-knit family.

An adaptation of Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse‘s comic of the same name, the series, created by Chris Sheridan, follows an extra-terrestrial played by Alan Tudyk who crash lands on our planet with a mission to wipe out humanity. After adopting the identity of a small-town physician, he gradually takes a liking to this mysterious place known as Earth. The show also starred Sara Tomko (Once Upon a Time), Corey Reynolds (The Closer), Alice Wetterlund (People of Earth), and Levi Fiehler (Mars).

At San Diego Comic-Con 2025, Collider’s Steven Weintraub sat down with Sheridan, Tudyk, Sara Tomko, and Corey Reynolds to discuss Season 4 of Resident Alien, creating a satisfying conclusion, letting the villains win, and Tudyk’s experience as a director.

The ‘Resident Alien’ Cast Talk Cinema and Collectibles at Comic-Con

They also discuss the post-rapture party on Earth.

COLLIDER: This has to be a bittersweet time at Comic-Con. It was announced that this is the final season.

ALEX WETTERLUND: What?

ALAN TUDYK: We weren’t going to tell Alice. She’s gonna go crazy.

WETTERLUND: Somebody call my publicist… friend. She’s really into the show.

TUDYK: So wait, you’re saying we’re canceled?

I’m saying to you that there might not be more episodes. I don’t want to say “canceled.”

SARA TOMKO: I know. I don’t like that word.

I have a ton of questions for you guys about the show, but thank you so much for making me and a lot of other people laugh. We’re going to get into the show in a second, but I’m obsessed with getting more people to see movies in movie theaters. Do you have a favorite movie theater?

TUDYK: In Los Angeles, Laemmle on Sunset.

TOMKO: I was going to say Laemmle, too.

TUDYK: Oh, I shouldn’t tell everybody, because nobody’s there all the time! It’s comfortable. They’re good screens and great popcorn, and they’ve got these gourmet chocolate bars and stuff.

WETTERLUND: I’m partial to The Americana at Brand.

COREY REYNOLDS: Yes! I like it. It’s a little basic bitch, but it serves its purpose.

WETTERLUND: And the seating is nice. The Vista, which [Quentin] Tarantino took over. You have to take your shoes off, but otherwise it’s great.

TUDYK: Universal CityWalk. Don’t kid yourself — that’s a pretty good theater. Parking’s a pain in the ass.

I respect you a lot, but the only good theater at what I call the ShittyWalk is the IMAX theater, which is spectacular. Everything else can go F itself.

TUDYK: Obviously, that’s the one I was talking about.

CHRIS SHERIDAN: I miss the Cinerama Dome. It’s not there, but maybe they’ll bring it back. I remember seeing The Fugitive there when it first came out. It was packed, and people lost their minds. That’s a movie experience to me.

WETTERLUND: I like a drive-in.

TOMKO: Aww. [Sings] “Stranded at the drive-in…” I was going to Laemmle, as well, but mine’s NoHo 7, which is my neighborhood. So, come check it out. [Laughs]

Collider has hosted some screenings at the NoHo 7. I know that theater very well.

So, we’re at Comic-Con, and one of the things about Comic-Con is a lot of people here collect things. If you collect anything, and if you were to go on the convention floor, what are you looking to buy?

REYNOLDS: I actually have the entire Kenner Super Powers collection from 1983. I think it ended in ‘86, including the Hall of Justice vehicles. You know the ones where you squeeze their legs and they punch?

I know exactly what you’re talking about. Do you have them loose, or do you have any on card and in the package?

REYNOLDS: I got the majority of them off eBay years ago, and they are packaged, and they have their little certification thing. Some of them are still in the original packaging. Very few of them are loose. I don’t buy them loose because they’re just not interesting to me like that. I have a big collection of action figures — thousands, between my son and I. Not thousands of Kenner Super Powers, because that collection wasn’t [in the] thousands, but my son and I have a ton of action figures that we play with. I’m a nerd.

TUDYK: I saw a Funko Pop thing online of the Peacemaker cast, but they’re on the dance stage. I asked Funko yesterday if it exists, and they said, “I think so.” I’d like that. I’m going to look for that forever now, whether it exists or not.

REYNOLDS: You could do the stop-motion choreography of the whole thing.

TUDYK: Yeah, my wife, [Charissa Barton], choreographed it, so that’s my interest in it.

I tried finding out through you and other people about the Peacemaker Season 2 new opening dance, new opening song, and they sent me episodes. I have them, and I have not had the chance to watch, and it’s killing me. I have access to the new opening and I have not had time to push play.

TUDYK: They’re going to reveal it here tomorrow.

SHERIDAN: I collected comic books when I was a kid, and just about two months ago, I went through the boxes to look at what I had. There’s some good stuff in there. I don’t know if it’s worth anything because I read each of them like 100 times, so they’re all raggedy, like an early Daredevil #2, and some really old stuff, but they’re half ripped, and I drew on them and stuff like that. I was a child!

TOMKO: Did you geek out then when you worked on a show that was from a comic book? I didn’t know that about you.

SHERIDAN: Yeah. That was cool.

TOMKO: Go ahead. I know you have things you look for.

WETTERLUND: Star Trek stuff.

TOMKO: Mine’s Zelda, all the time. Lately, I’ve been looking for earrings that are super unique. The last ones I bought at a con were the girl from the ring crawling out of the TV as the earring. I really like them because, from afar, you have no idea what’s happening, and when you get up close, you’re like, “Ah!”

Don’t they weigh a lot on the ear?

TOMKO: No, they’re super light.

REYNOLDS: It’s not the real girl. It’s a miniature!

I can imagine that’s what it must be like on set when you guys were filming this. That kind of improv. I could never do what you just did. A lot of credit, because when I watch the show, I’m like, “Oh, that might be an alt-line.” It’s mostly because I can see someone’s reaction, and they’re clearly not ready for that line.

REYNOLDS: I think that’s one of the best parts about ad-libbing and improvising, is it keeps everyone present. Because when you’re on the set, if you are not on your toes and present in the moment, you will get left behind. You will get left behind. It’s like that movie where the rapture happens, where there were people who got left behind.

WETTERLUND: Left Behind.

REYNOLDS: It’s like that, but without the rapture.

WETTERLUND: He brings that up a lot.

REYNOLDS: I’m obsessed with the rapture. It’s got to be the coolest thing in the world. Could you imagine if all of a sudden the mic just drops, boom, and just motherfuckers are gone?

WETTERLUND: You’d be here. Like you’d be taken.

REYNOLDS: Everybody would be like, “Oh my god. I guess I’m not worthy.” You’re gonna have a kickass party on Earth, though, post-rapture, because all the most heathenous motherfuckers are still gonna be here with nothing to lose. Come on! Let’s do it. Poof! [Laughs]

Chris Sheridan Made the Decision to End ‘Resident Alien’ With Season 4

“I’m going to come up with what is the best version of this show to end the story we’ve been telling.”

Did you know when you were making it that this was probably the last season? How were you thinking about when you were writing it?

SHERIDAN: I 100% knew.

TUDYK: You knew?!

TOMKO: How dare you.

SHERIDAN: Every year is a dance. At the end of Season 3, we were on the bubble and I developed the season to put a bunch of cliffhangers at the end, hoping that that might force them to do another season. It didn’t hurt, for sure, and we got another season, but I didn’t think I’d win that battle again. The way this business is now, I saw where things are going, and I didn’t want to play the game of, “Are we going to be picked up or not?”

At the beginning of every season, I’ve got to go and pitch a couple of weeks into the writers’ room. This was last July. I’ve got to pitch what the season’s going to be. I just made the decision that I’m going to end it. I’m going to come up with what is the best version of this show to end the story we’ve been telling. I pitched that to them, and I didn’t know what their reaction was going to be. It’s a satisfying ending to the series, and it’s very clear that it feels like an ending. I wasn’t sure after I finished the pitch, which is 20 minutes or a half hour of the season, what they were going to say, if they’re going to be surprised and be like, “Wait a second. You just ended it.” I finished the pitch, and they’re like, “That’s great.” [Laughs] I’m like, “Huh. Well, okay.”

So, when I went into the season, I sat down with all of these guys and said, “Look, this is probably going to be the last year. I don’t see it going past this. As you’ve read the scripts, you’ll see what I’m talking about, creatively, and we should just enjoy it and appreciate it while we’re doing it, because it may not happen again.”

Getting a television show on the air is impossible, and then to have more than one season is winning a crazy lottery. The fact that you guys did get four seasons is amazing.

WETTERLUND: And getting to end it our way, on our terms, and tell the story the way we wanted to. Telling Harry’s story the way it was meant to be.

TUDYK: Not the way I wanted. Kill everyone — I think I suggested that more than once.

WETTERLUND: Oh, you haven’t seen the last episode yet?

On television and in the movies, we’ve seen everything, every version of every story, but the thing that we really haven’t seen too often is the villain winning, or something really bad happening to everyone. In Game of Thrones, I wanted the Night King to win. I thought that all these different places are all so obsessed with being on the Iron Throne that if they just worked together, they could have defeated the evil. Having the villain win is representative of the real world, and now we’re all so obsessed with our own thing.

WETTERLUND: They kind of did turn the hero into the villain. For some reason. With Daenerys.

The ending of Game of Thrones is fucking terrible. It’s just awful.

WETTERLUND: Agreed.

REYNOLDS: They did that with [Avengers]: Infinity War. I think the gut blow of that film, and leading up to it, was, for the first time, everyone who’s a fan of all these superheroes and comic books, we watched the bad guy win. I think everyone knew that when you got to Endgame, things are going to somehow turn around, but I remember walking out of that theater, like you’re saying, seeing the bad guy win, everybody walking out was like… You know what I mean?

Here’s the thing, though. We all knew it was going to get fixed. I really mean the villain winning for real.

WETTERLUND: Well, it’s not Friends.

I don’t know how this show ends, but this show has a heart where you know things are going to work out in a certain way. Were you thinking about it in terms of the last few shots, and ultimately where Harry ends up and how it all goes?

SHERIDAN: It’s a great question. I don’t want to give away how it ends, but I didn’t want to leave the audience feeling anything but happy, satisfied, and hopeful about the world. It’s the same themes that we do every episode in a way. I always wanted to do a show where, at the end of the episode, people feel a little bit better about their lives, and people feel more hopeful, and people feel more connected to their neighbors. I wanted to carry that through to the end.

Alan Tudyk Discusses His Dual Role as an Actor and Director on the Series

“I’m going to really miss the freedom that this character afforded me.”

Alan, I think your performance on this show is underrated because of the way you have to deliver lines, and you play multiple versions. There’s a lot that you have to do. It’s not like this is some crazy budgeted show where you have a crazy shoot schedule. You have to do it all on schedule, on budget. There’s a lot of responsibility, probably, at home getting ready before you step on set. Can you talk about, as an actor, what this role has meant to you?

TUDYK: This role and the world that Chris created is so unique. I’m going to really miss the freedom that this character afforded me. If you’re in a play, a lot of plays end up on Broadway, but they started off Broadway, so it gets made with no budget. You’re changing the scenery and stuff like that. We made it the way we made it.

TOMKO: You were directing and playing a Mantid and playing Harry. I saw you fritzing out a little bit, but that was also quite beautiful how you balanced it all.

TUDYK: Because I had to leave to go get my beard off, and I had to change makeup, and come back. I was like, “I need to be on set. I need to do things while Alan is gone.”

TOMKO: I kind of got the vibe that you were just so into the directing that you were like, “I don’t want to act today. I just want to direct,” because you were having such a fun time.

You directed the first two episodes of Season 4. How did you end up with those two versus others?

TUDYK: To do prep, I could come early. But once we’re going, it’s so packed. There would have been no time to go on location scouting.

SHERIDAN: There are about 16 days of prep for the director, before the 15-day block that they’re shooting.

TUDYK: And I showed up two weeks before that.

SHERIDAN: It was the only time he would possibly have would be at the beginning of the season.

You directed some of Con Man. I’m making a joke here, but I’m sure it was very similar the way that was shot in Resident Alien. Very similar — same budget, same everything!

TUDYK: [Laughs] What was great with Con Man, this little thing that we made — “we” meaning myself and Nathan Fillion and the fans who gave us the money to make it — is I could be like, “Nah, that’s enough. We did it.” We left early a lot of days. The crew loved me. All of the crew came back for the second season like, “This is the best.” I would be like, “I don’t know if we need a close-up of this.” I mean, I would kick myself in editing.

What’s coverage? We don’t need coverage.

TUDYK: This was a much bigger animal, and this was a huge budget. What I am going to miss about the show is the world that it lives in, that can be so funny at times and be so crazy, like this season, with people just vomiting in kitchens, like, “Look in my eyes. This is for my babies,” and throwing up, and then we’re making out later. No one brushed their teeth between those two actions. There was a commercial break, but there was no toothbrushing. Anyway, you can have that, but then you can also have people fighting to get their baby back and the struggles with the moral, “What should I do?” Also, a pow-wow, man, this season was fantastic. I was so moved. You can tell when you watch it, I’m just in love with the whole experience. That was no acting. It was incredible.

The ‘Resident Alien’ Team Reflects on All Four Seasons

“Here are all these people I love, being together.”

It’s hard to pick out favorite moments from the years you worked on this, but when you think back, was there a favorite scene or sequence that really meant a lot to you? Or if you want to share a sequence that really went off the rails, and you needed 100 takes, or anything you want to share about.

WETTERLUND: There’s a scene in last week’s episode where everybody’s dancing — the waltz scene, the opening of last week’s episode. Anyone who’s seen the show who’s a fan will know there is an opening scene where most of the cast is dancing. D’Arcy’s not; it’s a dream sequence and D’Arcy’s wandering through the streets. All of a sudden, the whole town appears around her and starts dancing. There was one rehearsal for that where everyone came to dance and was preparing this choreographed move, and I didn’t have to appear until later in the rehearsal. You don’t get a lot of moments to appreciate everything condensed down to one second of, like, “Here is your place in this story. You get to appear in this one second and see everyone doing stuff.” I just got to stare and look at everyone that I love so much do this job and work together in this way. I started crying during the rehearsal because it was this really moving moment. Here are all these people I love, being together, and I just get to stand here and appreciate them and watch. The rehearsal for the Waltz was probably my favorite time.

TOMKO: Unbelievable. It’s a perfect, beautiful moment. Now I’m crying. Thank you. I always love to comment on Harry’s birthday party. It was the first time we all got to be together on set as a full ensemble, and it was so much fun that day to shoot. There are a couple of scenes coming up in the grand finale that I’m really looking forward to seeing and also heartbroken to think about it being the last. But it is what it is.

REYNOLDS: I can’t remember what season it was — I want to say it was either the end of Season 1 or maybe Season 2. There’s a scene where Harry comes to Asta’s house to murder her, and Alan’s got this whole monologue that is so brilliantly performed, where he is simply begging her to let him kill her so he can kill everyone, because he can’t kill everyone because he doesn’t want to kill her. He’s like, “I realize I have to come here and kill you.” He’s very emotional in the scene, and he’s crying, and it’s against the backdrop of these somewhat outrageous things that he’s saying.

That scene always stood out to me as a prime example of the dichotomy of what the storytelling of this show is. You have this hilarious moment of this emotional moment, this tormented individual, and you’re hearing this deep, heartfelt confession regarding how he feels, but it’s against the backdrop of, “I’m here to kill you.” It’s the perfect left turn in writing, is how I describe it, where something that’s so contrary to what’s happening in the moment. We tend to do that a lot, where it sits in the background, in a sense. Chris is really great at setting those moments up. That performance by these two was just outstanding. That’s what stands out to me.

SHERIDAN: There was a moment in that scene that I ended up cutting out, where Harry says, “It’s okay, I have a knife and I would make it quick.” Asta says, “You’re holding a spoon.” And he says, “Okay, it wouldn’t have been so quick.” We ended up cutting it out for some reason. There are so many that I love.

To look at the comedy of it, I have to look at the scene in Season 3 where Harry and Heather, played by Edi Patterson, kissed in front of Asta and D’Arcy, and it was the most bizarre, weird… There’s screaming involved. There was one point where Alan had his mouth open. He was lying back, and she was spitting seeds into his mouth. But what was so great about it was, obviously, it was funny, but the crew was trying so hard not to laugh. Every time we cut, the crew would burst into laughter, and there was an energy on set for hours around that. It made me realize how powerful the comedy is, obviously for the audience and for the actors, but for the crew to work on a show that’s light and funny. They get so excited to come to work because every day they’re going to be laughing so much. That’s a perfect example of it.

WETTERLUND: And it was so hot. We had to take breaks because I was so turned on.

TUDYK: Mine was from Season 1. It was the end of a day. I think it was the first episode. It might have been the pilot, where we were at the end of the day, and it was like, “Oh, we’ve got to do examples of Harry trying to learn to be human.” We only had time for two takes. We didn’t have another costume. I said, “I’ll just take off my pants. I’ll do it in my underwear. That’s different.” Then we just did it. It was a proscenium shot. It was like the stage. It felt like, “Quick, quick! Hurry up. Go. Do it once.” I was just eating a chicken from its back end. While I’m there, I’m thinking, “I didn’t know I could chew through bones like this. I’m very impressed with my ability to just make a meal out of the bone.” And then just fall over backwards, being confused by why gravity is taking me in this direction.

TOMKO: That fall is exquisite.

TUDYK: Any TV show that allows that. That is not typical.

All four seasons of Resident Alien are available to stream on Peacock now.