Yahoo Finance Alan Tudyk explains why his Resident Alien character hates humans in exclusive sneak peek
SYFY
It's not easy being a stranger in a strange land. In Syfy's new show Resident Alien, which premieres this Wednesday, Alan Tudyk plays an extraterrestrial who has crash-landed on Earth and must disguise himself as a human until he can complete his mission. He's been successfully keeping a low profile by disguising himself as Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle and hiding in a remote area in Colorado, but when the series begins, a medical emergency in a nearby town means Harry must come in and pretend to be a normal human doctor.
In the exclusive preview clip below, you can hear exactly what Harry thinks of the humans around him: Backwards, undeveloped, dumber than lizards.
"He doesn't have a very sympathetic view of them," Tudyk tells EW. "When I started the job, [showrunner] Chris Sheridan said that I should look at humans the way you might look at pantry moths. You don't consider at all killing them. There are some bugs you don't want to kill, like if there was a butterfly in your house, you'd be like, 'oh let's free it!' But a pantry moth is just, 'kill it!' You don't want them to breed, they'll destroy whatever grains or cereals you have in your house. So that was the approach I took."
Regardless of Harry's opinions about humanity, though, he does have to disguise himself as one of them. Particularly in the early episodes, we see Tudyk's character struggling to seem normal both on the physical (getting used to a human body) and social (learning when not to ask certain questions) levels.
"I love humor where a character is inappropriate and ignorant, especially when it's coming from a place of arrogance," Tudyk says. "Since he's an alien who knows so much about the universe that humans don't, he thinks he's the smartest person on the planet. He is in some ways, but he's completely stupid about humanity. I like being able to stumble into inappropriate social situations so easily, especially with him being a doctor. Human biology is embarrassing anyway, even to humans! We do a lot to dress it up, cover it, and hide it. So him wading into that subject is really fun."
Resident Alien premieres Wednesday on Syfy. Check out the exclusive preview clip above.
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