Exclusive Alien: Romulus Clip Reveals How They Built THAT Animatronic

A new featurette from Alien: Romulus is taking you behind-the-scenes on one of 2024’s best horror films.

Shared exclusively with Men’s Journal, the footage details the incredible craftwork that went into creating animatronics, especially one of them in particular. Be warned, spoilers follow for Alien: Romulus, so if you haven’t seen it yet, watch out for spoilers below.

Rook returns in Alien: Romulus, first seen in 1979’s Alien. He’s an artificial science officer on board the Renaissance space station, and required a wealth of expertise to bring to life - or not, as the case may be.

“Fede Alverez felt very strongly from the beginning that we would use an animatronic puppet to be Rook,” says Eric Barba, visual effects supervisor, “because he’s completely damaged. There’s only half of him. He’s certainly had an interesting meeting with the Xenomorph.”

The challenge was bringing Rook back after his actor, Ian Holm, died in 2020. First, Alverez got permission from his family, then set about searching for a cast of his face. Thankfully, he had one made in 1999 for the production of Lord of The Rings, in which he plays Bilbo.

The problem there is, he’s 20 years older in that movie than he is in Alien, so talented designers had to de-age him before capturing that likeness in Alien: Romulus. It’s a fascinating process.