ALIEN:ROMULUS Star Cailee Spaeny Talks Being Compared To Ripley And How This New Film Is "Pure Horror"

Could we see a return to form for the Alien franchise with Fede Alvarez’s new film ALIEN: ROMULUS? Star Cailee Spaeny believes so and she has recently spoken up about what the film contributes to the already long and bloody history that is ALIEN as well as her being compared to past Xeno-kickin badass Ripley aka Sigourney Weaver.

Alien: Romulus hits theaters from 20th Century Studios on August 16th, later this year.

The most recent trailer for Alien: Romulus has Cailee Spaeny wielding a pulse rifle like Ripley did in Aliens but the star reminds us that she is definitely not ripping off or even trying to compete with Ripley.

"I definitely did everything that I could to bring that character to life," she tells Total Film. "Watching Sigourney play that role - she’s part of the changing of the game that those films did."

"I could never be her. But I injected whatever I have in me into that character, and tried to make it three-dimensional - as three-dimensional as possible. So I hope that that’s there, and it comes alive."

While Spaeny understandably hopes to put her own spin on the franchise's latest female lead, it sounds like Álvarez didn't shy away from taking what worked well in those original movies and bringing it to the table for this installment.

"We used practical effects. We had the same people who worked on Aliens. They came back. They were there making the xenomorph. This is a creature that they have so much love for. We had puppeteers working on the face-hugger. So to see that – it all felt so alive," Spaeny recalls.

"I had to turn off my 'nerding out' brain, because I was just like, 'Wow, it’s beautiful. Ooh, you put the Giger skull...' I had to turn that off. But it was properly scary. We set it between the first movie and the second," she teases.

"We were talking about, 'How could this be a child of the two?' So we have those heightened moments, but then proper horror."

In the movie, while scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Alien: Romulus also stars David Jonsson (Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy), Archie Renaux (Shadow and Bone), Isabela Merced (The Last of Us), Spike Fearn (Aftersun), and Aileen Wu.

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