Alan Tudyk Says Resident Alien Was Nearly Put on Hold Before Season 1

No one can deny that Alan Tudyk was absolutely born to play the role of extraterrestrial in disguise Harry Vanderspeigle on SYFY‘s Resident Alien (stream the first three seasons on Peacock right here).

Creator, showrunner, and executive producer Chris Sheridan knew this deep down in his soul, but couldn’t articulate it until the Firefly alum auditioned very, very late in the process. “Chris says that he didn’t know what the role looked like, he just thought he’d know it when he saw it,” Tudyk said during a chat with FandomeWire at Fan Expo in Philadelphia this past weekend. “Luckily, that’s what I did and he went, ‘That’s it!'”

However, that aha moment didn’t arrive until after 100+ people had already tried out for the character.

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Why SYFY’s Resident Alien Was Almost Put on Hold Before Season 1 Was Filmed

“[It] made me question my agents and also the casting director. You couldn’t have brought me in sooner?” joked the actor. “But they were about to give up on casting it. Everybody else was cast and they were gonna just fold it up and put it off until the next season and start again. Then I just went in and did whatever I do… I did what I do on the show. I just did that and they went, ‘Oh! Okay, then. You do that!’ And they hired me. I was hired the next day. It was all very fast after that.”

“We had auditions for several dozen actors before Alan walked through the door … I knew of Alan and knew his work. But I was sort of blown away when he came in,” Sheridan told ScreenRant in 2021. “There were some actors who came in and just played it like a leading man. And there were some that came in and played it, you know, like an alien, a little more robotic … [Alan] walked the line down the middle where he played it oddly enough that you can buy that this guy is an alien, but he also has an Alan himself and has so much humanity in him. That humanity comes through in his performance, which grounds the character and also makes them feel human in a way.”

How to Watch SYFY’s Resident Alien

Want to catch up on the story so far? All three seasons of Resident Alien — which hold an aggregate and near-perfect score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes — are now streaming on Peacock right here!

The Resident Alien fun will continue this June as Asta and Harry prepare for the birth of their child in a brand-new comic book storyline, subtitled The Book of Life, from writer Peter Hogan and artist Steve Parkhouse. Issue #1 hit stands via Dark Horse Wednesday, June 26.