My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 108 - ALAN TUDYK

Episode Date: February 2, 2021

Alan Tudyk (Star Wars: Rogue One, Dodgeball, Frozen, Knocked Up, Moana, Ice Age, Zootopia, 3:10 to Yuma, Firefly, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6) joins Robbie in the Basement to discuss his brand new show, RESIDENT ALIEN, as well as plenty of other topics in his realm. 3Chi: Use code MMB at checkout to receive 5% off at 3Chi.comYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. This was an awesome interview for me to be able to do. I've been a fan of Alan's for a long time, so it was just one of those surreal interviews. Talking to anyone that's been in a Star Wars movie is kind of friggin' crazy. This interview is sponsored by 3G as well, the industry leader in Delta-8 THC products. These products are the best in the USA. They are made in the USA, formulated in the USA by a biochemist. It's federally legal and it's a

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order and let them know that you're a listener of the show. It supports us both. Go to 3chi.com right now. Shop for vapes, gummies, tinctures, whatever you need. Use that promo code MMB for My Mom's Basement at checkout. Now let's get into this interview with Alan Tudyk. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to My Mom's Basement. I'm joined by a very special guest right now. He is the star of Resident Alien on SyFy, and it just premiered last night. I just watched it. I was very excited about it. I loved the first episode. Mr. Alan Tudyk, how you doing? Hey, man. I'm doing good. Thank you very much. I'm glad you liked it. I loved it, and this is a show that is written by a guy named Chris Sheridan, who wrote for Family Guy for a really long time.

And he was at Family Guy for a really long time. I wanted to start off and ask you, did you meet him at Family Guy or American Dad? Is that where this connection came from? No, I didn't know him at all. This is one of those weird jobs that you just kind of go, well, it was meant to be because they evidently auditioned a lot of people. They were looking at a lot of different directions for the role. They didn't know how they wanted to go with it. And according to them, they were ready to give up. But for me, my understanding of it was I got a call like on a Monday to audition, auditioned on a Tuesday. And they were like like do you want to do it on a wednesday so it all went really fast and they were already getting very close to production so like from the time that i got the job to when we were shooting was really i think maybe a month

wow that's really interesting for me to hear i'm not just saying it because you're here but after watching the first episode it kind of feels like a show that I know is a comic book, but was almost written for you, this character. Like, it's so perfect, the connection. So it's funny you say that. When did you start shooting this? Oh my God, so long ago. Yeah? So very long ago. It was two years ago. Holy shit, wow. Wow. It was that long ago. We, because we shot it and then they put it together and they're like, well, this is good sci-fi. I don't really know what was going on at sci-fi, but they, they, they were trying to figure out when they were going to put it on. They liked it. They, they wanted to pick it up. And then they, it just kept getting pushed a little bit more and a little bit more. And it was, some of it was about when we were going to shoot what time of year. And then finally we shot shot it and then there was a global pandemic you may have heard about that and we stopped for six months and then picked back up and finished it off and now it's really only been a few months since we finished they're still still working on

the final episodes was it weird to hop back into that character after like some time spent away did you have to remind yourself what was going on yeah there's a little there's this there's going to be some moments where you're like whoa that moment where the driver that you're in the car and the driver suddenly and you hit the light you come back it's gonna be maybe a little a little bit of that i i have a feeling there people may notice, and it can be a fun game. Try to figure out where the pandemic happened, because I think it'll be easy to see on my character. I'll be on an interior shot.

Everything will be normal. I'll cross through a threshold to an exterior shot, and I'll gain 10 pounds. You'll go, what the hell? What happened to the alien? My God. He may be pregnant.'s he's undergoing some metamorphosis this is i'm sure this is part of the plot but it's really just pandemic weight

that's so funny you say that uh i'm a big kevin smith fan and he once shot a pilot that he finished after he lost like tons of weight after he had a heart attack and at the end of the pilot they just couldn't not address it and they had had to throw in a joke like, man, you look like you took a 40 pound shit. And that was how they excused it. It's funny that you say this got delayed for so long, too, because I felt like 2021, it's such a perfect time for this show to come out because it's obviously you're alien looking at the world and kind of a very bizarre way. You're trying to figure everything out. There's that scene where you're looking at the kids and they're giving each other the finger and you're like, is that how that works? Sometimes I wake up in 2020, 2021, I feel like I'm looking at the world like I'm a frigging

alien. It is strange times we're living in and kind of perfect for Resident Alien. Yeah, it's definitely a fresh set of eyes to look at humanity and look at the world through. Because he's, he's narrating it. So you get his, his take on everything as he sees it. And he's trying to figure out how humans work so that he can adapt and, and blend in and not get caught, but also he's there to kill everyone. So he's interested in that part of it there's a moral dilemma yeah well he wasn't supposed to meet anybody he was just supposed to do a little fly over drop a bomb that you know kills humanity only it's a it's an interesting bomb it'll kill

only humans and everything else will remain and then he was supposed to fly back home. But because he crashes, he's forced to confront his victims. And then the body starts to work on him because he's in this disguise of a human. And he starts to have dreams as the season goes on. He starts to feel emotions. And so it becomes more complicated as it goes. I can't wait to continue with it. Let me ask you this.

What are your personal favorite alien movies? Like growing up, modern, whatever it may be. Alien, that's just a great movie that has an alien in it. I mean, a very potent alien that ends up launching. How movies now five oh my god i have no they're probably more than episodes of the show at this point yeah it's got five i think they've done five now and i think there's another one coming uh so that one comes to mind et was

great it that just came out that's an alien yeah little shop of horrors man frank oz frank oz the legend play yeah the uh that i still watch the opening number my wife wife and i love the um the opening number of that it's just so great there's a lot of alien there's a lot of good alien movies out there those are my tops so if you were picking an actual alien from the movie though to hang out with, which one are you going with there? Cause like your character from this show, I love this show. It's a great show. I wouldn't want to hang out with this guy. Definitely not. No, he's weird, man. He's unsettling. I think Mork from Ork, uh, from Mork and Mindy, if i got to hang out with any anybody because that was just pure robin williams

in the 80s yeah that was unchained man that guy's a great pick yeah he'd be he'd be a blast to hang out with brilliant guy brilliant goodwill hunting top five favorite movie of all time for me his really and that is just it's next level the scene on the park bench the scene where he says i had to go see about a girl that That is like my favorite. One of my favorite performances ever is Robin Williams in that movie. He won the Oscar for that, didn't he? I think he did. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did.

Looking at your IMDb page, anyone can look at it and you go, man, this guy has done it all. He's been in so many different franchises. He's been in so many different, he's had vocal acting roles. He's had actual acting roles in so many different movies and stuff do you look at that and do you go I have I have stuff left to do do you say I did everything that I ever dreamed of what is your outlook on your career at this point where I look at that and I go what do i have things to do i'm pretty sure it's always like i'll read a script and you get a role like resident alien i wouldn't have thought i need to play an alien definitely looking at my at what i've done in the past i need more sci-fi i need to do an alien

but i've you know after reading it i was like like, I really hope I get this because I have to play this. Because it's a challenge on so many levels of physical. It's a physical acting role because he doesn't know how to move. And he doesn't know how to talk to begin with. And he doesn't know how to do anything. Everything is a discovery discovery which is a really fun character to play like you were talking about the flipping off like what is that every i mean you can really get lost in the headspace of it what was his understanding of doorknobs when

he first was figuring it out and and the toilet flushing you know he had to learn everything so i just kind of i leave it to the writers of the world out there as the scripts, as the scripts come in just to get inspired. There's so many roles that, probably in the more of the normal range of role. I haven't, I haven't touched a lot of those, the sort of, where their bandwidth is a lot smaller. Serious stuff? Is that something that intrigues you? Like you've done so much comedy

obviously or do you go i would love to play a very serious character do a movie where i make people cry and make myself cry i i would like to play something that is very real that has a very real element to it some a character that has a a nice struggle throughout a movie that's that's fun um you know when you do character role I've done a lot of character roles and small supporting roles. What it ends up being is you have a script and you have like three big scenes you can look at. Okay, so I have to tell the story of my character

in these three scenes. So you're limited in that way. It's like a puzzle, right? You got to kind of find the pieces for it. Right. And you're telling the story. You don't want to distract. But you want to give your character

a respectable performance and where people walk away and go, oh yeah, I remember that. Remember that guy. So I guess I would like, I've been spoiled now by Resident Evil playing the lead. I'm ready to get into the four scene, the five scene characters.

The six scene characters. I'm feeling crazy. I like that. Now talking about your voice acting career, which I think is such a fascinating just realm of entertainment, voice acting. It's something that's fascinated me since I was a kid because I'm so into cartoons, even adult cartoons at this point, the family guys, the robot chickens, stuff like that. Did you look to get into voice acting when you were looking to get into entertainment? Or was that something that came about in a more natural way because you have the voice for it? It came about in a more natural way. I always liked voices as a kid. I remember doing a production of Working, the musical, when I was

12, something like that, in Texas. It was at the Plano Senior High, but I was 12, something like that in Texas. It was at the Plano senior high, but I was 12. So I was definitely not going to that school and they did this summer production. And so I was working with all these older kids and some adults were in it because it was a summer production. And there was this actor and he did a character just kind of off the cuff did this voice. I remember him talking like what I knew to be a New York accent.

Yeah, yeah. You know, me and my buddies, we coming out, we're doing this thing. He liked Billy Joel. He was talking about the streets and we get to talking about the trash can fire. I got to get in a trash can fire. I got to get it started early in the day. And I was like, oh yeah, you got it, got it started. And he's like, no, no, no, no.

And he helped me learn it it and I wouldn't shut up talking like that for a while so I remember at an early age putting voices together when I'd hear them I'd want to learn them and put them away for for use at another time and then it just kind of happened I I was in ice age a casting director saw me in a play she called me in gave me a stack of characters that were drawn and so give a voice to each one and there's like the character and the line or two and you just look at it and be like oh i don't know you're a little guy yeah he's got kind of gritted teeth and find some kind of voice for the guy and then next one next one next one and then I got a call and I said, you got three roles. And that

was my first one and really didn't do much until Wreck-It Ralph. And that just, once I did Wreck-It Ralph, it was such a cool role. It's such a good movie, Disney, that a lot of doors opened at that point. Do you find those roles to be any less daunting than actually being on camera and acting in that way? Do you step into the booth and have safety, or is it the same kind of thing? It is far less daunting. I'm undaunted. Because you can just do 75 takes. And you're very protected and in that way and you have time to

find it if you're if it takes a minute it depends on who you're working with everybody has a different way of doing it sometimes it's an audition sometimes they're just like we'd like you to do this what's your take on this but yeah you have you have an opportunity to make mistakes if you're doing a film man the sun's going down and we don't, we don't have time. Especially like a TV show with like Resident Alien. Two takes.

We got to get going. We got a big day today because you got to get into the alien makeup later and that's going to take us, you're going to be offset for a while. I was going to ask you

if you were actually the person in the alien makeup in the suit when your character transitions. Yes. There's backup alien keith who's who's suffering all day long in that makeup when i'm in makeup uh for reflection shots and stuff because he's seen as an alien in reflection so he'll he'll come in to do that

even on other days when it's just a reflection uh because it's such a process uh he'll do stunts he had to catch the football. There was no way I could catch that. I couldn't see. He's much more athletic than I am. So he'll do those specialty moments. But when it comes to acting, especially since as the season goes on,

I'm acting more and more with the kid as an alien because whenever the kid's around, he sees me as an alien. So I have all these scenes so we needed it needs to be me in those that's so great and going back to the voice acting are there levels to it when you get cast as say the joker in harley quinn who i think you just do such a great joker voice and i love that show as well for talk about adult cartoons like if you haven't seen harley quinn on HBO Max, it is fantastic.

If you're a comic book fan like me, like, oh my God, it's everything you ever wanted. When you do a voice like that and you obviously, how can you not look at Mark Hamill, the classic Joker animated voice? Is it like, man, I got to change it. So people don't want to be listening to this and thinking, I'm trying to do a Mark Hamill impression, but I also have to make it my own iconic. What is the struggle of that like? I've listened to very, no offense to Mark Hamill.

I haven't listened to much of his Joker. It's probably a good thing, right? Yeah, it's helpful to not have been influenced that way. Because when somebody does something so well, it's hard not to be. But there are so many good Jokers out there. Yeah. Heath Ledger, come on, man. So well, it's hard not to be. But there are so many good Jokers out there. Yeah.

Heath Ledger, come on! Man, from the moment he is on screen when he comes with those grenades in his jacket and he does the pencil trick, just brilliant. Isn't it crazy to think about a Joker before Heath Ledger created that iteration of the character? Yeah. I, you know, was at Cesar Romero, the one with Adam West who had the mustache.

That was my first Joker. Paint over it. Paint over the mustache. I'm not shaving it. I'm not me without it. And it worked. I don't know. Yeah. It definitely speaks to that person's crazy. Watch out for that Joker. he's got a mustache he painted over that's just weird man and he influenced me because he was my first joker i i noticed that there were times when i was and that's definitely him and then

jack nicholson was the only joker you could imagine and then he, and Mark's in there, and now Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. Man, that's great. And you, you're in there, Alan. And now I'm in there somewhere. I'm the Joker. The way I approached it was his origin story, he gets, you know, takes a bath in acid.

So, you know, there's going to be an amount of, because I have acid refluxux and it just kills my voice. So it's like a bad night of like Indian food and you wake up in the morning and it's a little rough. So, you know, you're pushing past that, but it's all ripped up in there. And it's mad and crazy, but there's so many. You can go so far with that role. But that was where I started. I love that.

You actually thinking about the acid and how that would affect his voice. I've never heard that. I'm a massive Batman fan. Have been my whole life. Never heard anyone point that out. That's how I approach most of anything is try to find something real that I'm like that I can at least, you know, I've experienced that. I've experienced Indian food. I can do the joke. That's spicy, spicy deliciousness. And now talking about another one of your roles, I've waited far enough into the interview to do this.

I'm a massive Star Wars fan. I got a lightsaber tattooed on my arm. Oh, nice. K2SO. I am a huge fan of this character he's my favorite character in rogue one a movie that i love oh wow so you know star wars is going to be this massive thing when you sign up to do it obviously how could it not be but when you're in the booth recording lines for k2so before i assume you've even seen any footage from the movie do you know that this is about to become one of your most iconic roles ever do you know that people are probably going to be asking you about this for the rest of your life?

It's better than that. Well, it isn't quite like that. I was, I saw K2SO, the first time I saw K2SO was at ILM. Before we started shooting the movie, they showed me early sketches that were similar. Very, very close, but a little different. And I didn't want to do it. Wow. Why not? No, but a little different. And I didn't want to do it. Wow. Why not?

No, it's so stupid. Because his face was fixed. And he's got to, you know, that's that. And, you know, because Rogue One is where it is in the series, in the saga, I should say. Yeah. in the series in the saga i should say yeah you can't suddenly have a droid in way back times that has an ability to express that that none of them have uh the for the in the ones shot in the 70s oh my god i have a i'm i didn't i didn't put my do not disturb on and people are calling that is just rude.

Is it Diego Luna? He knows you're talking about K2SO? He's like, don't spoil anything for Andor? Alan, I'm sick and tired of reading this bullshit. Talking about you're not going to do the show for five years. So I wasn't going to do it because C-3PO's face is fixed, and this takes place before you meet C-3PO, the movie, and the chronology. So I wasn't into it. I had done a little short movie for a show called Con Man for crowdfunding, and it was me sitting on a toilet, and it's about Comic-con conventions and it's a the the scene is me as a sci-fi actor who has his career

has become that only that he was a guy in a show that was canceled and his career has stalled out and so that's his only claim to fame now and it's a bit frustrating but he's very famous for it like if he if he was a almost like spock you know people know you know especially sci-fi fans but people know him as that guy and he's sitting in a toilet in an airport on the phone with somebody. And then the guy next to him in the stall is like, Hey, are you that guy from that sci-fi show? Can you sign this thing? And he's trying to get him to sign stuff. And then this guy starts talking to him about which show I didn't see it.

He's like, Oh, it was canceled. And it's just, the whole scene is on me. So what they did was they animated. This is so cool. They animated K2SO on the toilet, doing that scene, a piece of the scene, to show me how expressive K2SO could be with the fixed thing. Wow. That's so bad. And that was what sold you on it? That was like, okay, I see what you could do with this guy now.

It's pretty much. I mean, I see what you could do with this guy now. It's pretty much. I mean, I was hesitant. Gareth called and said, Alan, come to London. Do a Star Wars movie. But what about this and what about that? And I don't know. And then he just kind of keeps Alan. It was like a pause.

Come to London. Do a Star Wars movie. Do a Star Wars movie. And I said, yeah, you're right. This is stupid. Of course a pause. Come to London, do a Star Wars movie. Do a Star Wars. And I said, yeah, you're right. This is stupid. Of course I want to come to London. And when I got there, they had that movie. So it happened in that.

I had said yes, and then they showed me that. But it was all part of the pitch, I guess. And then we made it. You know, I was on stilts. I was there. It took six months. There was a lot of improv surprising amount of improv our script was kind of there was it kind of wobbled in a place it kind

of shifted the writer changed we weren't really privy to what was going on as fans we heard a ton of that and you know people wound up becoming worried and their stories that there was bad things and then the movie came out and everyone's like oh never mind there's nothing to worry about yeah it was weird like even mistakes conspired to be good things there's a one of my favorite things i can't believe gareth you're like i'm putting that in the movie where uh i'm walking we're on jetta and i'm with diego's character cassie and we get stopped by some stormtroopers. And so I'm pretending to be taking him as my prisoner. And Jen Erso, these are my prisoners. I slap him.

He starts talking. I say, silence. And there's a fresh one if you mouth off again. The reason I slapped him was because he showed up to work with this busted lip that they had put on in makeup. And Gareth's like, oh't we need to get rid of your busted lip now he's like why the scene right before this i get i get punched in the face he's like that scene's gone they changed the thing now that scene's gone so you don't have a busted lip he's like what if and i don't know if he asked me so what if he slaps me or i said what if i slap

you or how it all happened but that that's why I slapped him there. Amazing. He had a busted lip from an earlier version that changed without telling anybody, without trickling down to all of the departments. Anyway, it was magic. It was great. It was, you're surrounded by Star Wars.

All the action figures are around you, walking around. There's a robot that never even made it into the movie i remember seeing him he was like almost two stories high and i was and he he's being pulled by a i can't remember an alien but it was a little person who was in costume and he was like made up like he was enslaved and somebody goes there's a there's a man in there and you couldn't see like where's a guy in that costume and there's like a chest piece that pulled down, there's a man in there. And you couldn't see. You're like, where's a guy in that costume? And there's like a chest piece that pulled down and there's a guy who had no legs.

And he was a puppeteer who was like a legless puppeteer. It was like they built it for him to do this thing. And I don't know why I never made it in the movie. They've just got brilliance to burn. Yeah. Cut it, cut it. I mean, you see with Star wars all the time too like anything that they wanted to have not using in one movie we'll see eventually one day down the line in

another one you look at it even still to this day with ralph mcquarrie concept art is still being looked at being like let's actually put this in the new movie yeah yeah i think there's some of that happening in rogue one they were going back to his stuff for that absolutely and i know that the death star is probably aimed at wherever you're doing this media day from right now so you can't say anything about andor i'm not even going to ask you anything about andor i know you're not right thank you thank you i really can't say anything yeah i appreciate the time i appreciate uh just doing this i'm a big fan of yours, like I said, for a long time. So everyone check out Resident Alien on SyFy.

Continue and you could watch the first episode on SyFy.com right now if you missed it. And Alan Tudyk, thank you.