An Alien legend returns for an Alien: Romulus cameo – but not in the way you might be expecting
Aug. 16, 2024A major character returns in Alien: Romulus
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We are now heading into spoiler territory for Alien: Romulus… you have been warned.
And if you haven’t seen it already, check out ourAlien: Romulus reviewfor our verdict as well as our guide to the bestmovies and shows to watch before Alien: Romulusif you want to prepare yourself before heading to the theater.
Is Ash back? Who does Ian Holm play in Alien: Romulus?
Alien: Romulus will leave your jaw on the floor for many reasons (particularly withthatending), but arguably the biggest shock is the appearance of actor Ian Holm. As you may remember, Holm portrayed Science Officer Ash in 1979’s Alien, a sleeper agent who is revealed to be a synthetic acting upon secret orders to bring the xenomorph back to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.In that movie he met his end thanks to Ripley and Parker, who made sure to blast his head with a flamethrower so there’s no chance of his return.
So, the question is then, how is Ash back in Alien: Romulus? Well, here Holm plays another character, Science Officer Rook, who the group discover lying on the ground in the space station - well, his torso anyways, as half of his body is missing. Clearly Weyland-Yutani made a series of androids with the same appearance, hence Holm portrays another character here.
Similar to Ash, Rook is dedicated to the Corporation with his prime directive being to “complete the mission”. Now, that mission involves working on a compound that is made from a gene taken from the DNA of a xenomorph, something known as the’Prometheus file'. Weyland-Yutani plan to use it to “upgrade humanity” believing that it will help save mankind, which is struggling to survive out in space.
Considering the group to therefore be expendable, as his only goal is to get the compound back to HQ for further development, Rook doesn’t care if they live or die providing many an obstacle. Here he bites the dust this time when the space station explodes upon impacting against a nearby planet’s rings. A suitable ending for such a villain.
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Of course, for now we can only speculate as all will be supposedly be revealed following release, but in the credits Holm is listed as a ‘facial and vocal reference’. Meanwhile an actor named Daniel Betts is created with providing the ‘facial and vocal performance’ which tells us that the two would have been blended together using digital trickery. For Tarkin’s return in Rogue One for example, they had an actor perform the part but digitally replaced his face with Cushing’s, using previous footage. Looking at the credits, our guess is that the same has been done here, but of course that is only speculation.
Naturally bringing back a dead actor will cause some controversy as it previously did with the likes of Cushing for Rogue One. And if it’s revealed that AI was involved too in order to bring Rook to life, that will also prove to be a point of contention.
Alien: Romulus is out in theaters worldwide now. For more sci-fi action, here’s how to watch theAlien movies in order, everything we know so far about the upcomingAlien TV series, and our favoriteAlien factsthat will blow your mind.
As Entertainment Editor at GamesRadar, I oversee all the online content for Total Film and SFX magazine. Previously I’ve worked for the BBC, Zavvi, UNILAD, Yahoo, Digital Spy and more.
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