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'Resident Alien' creator teases intel on Season 2 guest stars Alex Borstein, Nathan Fillion & Linda Hamilton
There are some famous guest stars visiting Patience, Colorado, in Season 2 of Resident Alien!
When SYFY's Resident Alien returns for its second season on Jan. 26, there will be a few very familiar faces (and one voice) hanging out with alien Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk) and his circle of humans in Patience, Colorado. Creator/showrunner Chris Sheridan says the new season allowed him to keep, and invite, some very important guest stars for the ongoing story including returnees Linda Hamilton as General McCallister and the voice of Nathan Fillion as the sushi restaurant octopus, and add Emmy Award-winner Alex Borstein (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) to the list.
"I've known Alex since we started working on Family Guy together and I love her to death," Sheridan tells SYFY WIRE. "We had developed this Episode 3 that involves this great character that Harry, among other things, goes on a date with. And as far as one-off roles for one episode, it was one of our first big casting opportunities. This is a role that you need a really good actor in, and it's probably gonna be hard to get someone for a lot of reasons."
Sheridan knew they just needed to get creative with whom to ask. As it happens, around the same time, Sheridan says he ran into Borstein at a July 4th party after not seeing her for almost two years. He mentioned Resident Alien and she immediately expressed interest in participating.
"I was kind of shocked that she would do it, or consider doing it," Sheridan says with a laugh. "I told her that it just so happened we had this role that I thought she would be perfect for and I said, 'I'll just send you the script. And let me know. No pressure. You don't have to do it.' But she liked it. And she came up."
Appearing just in Episode 3, Sheridan teases that Borstein's character is very much into Harry. "She knocked it out of the park," Sheridan enthuses."She was absolutely incredible. She had a really tight schedule because she had her kids in school and other things she had to do. She came up [to set] for like five days in Vancouver, and I really, really appreciate it. No one could have done it better."
Sheridan is equally excited about Linda Hamilton returning as General McCallister to flesh out the character. While Season 1 offered a hint at McCallister's past with aliens and her potential goals for Harry's alien technology, Sheridan says he really wanted to give the character a lot more investment in Season 2.
"I think in the first season, the one downside was that when we cast her into [General McCallister], a lot of the role was already developed when we cast her," he says. "Now that we have her, we're able to do what we weren't really able to do last year, which is make the role more three dimensional and give her some more stakes. Let us understand a little more why this is personal for her and give her more meat to play. We had a little bit more time to work on her backstory. She's such a great actress and really just such a great person, so it's enjoyable to have her."
With that in mind, that begs the question if General McCallister will be featured heavily in the whole of Season 2? Sheridan's response is teasing.
"I feel like if we lean too much into the government aspect of it, the balance of the show starts feeling tonally a little bit different," Sheridan explains. "I think her power — and the power of the government entities that are after Harry — work best when we see a little bit of them here and there. So, she's still very present in the season. We'll see her in the first eight [episodes] and the second eight [episodes]. And her presence will grow a little bit as the season goes along, as it did last year."
And last but never least, there's Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk's former co-star in Firefly and the web series Con Man. He voiced the hilarious sushi restaurant tank octopus in Season 1, and Sheridan says the octopus will have his tendrils in the story even more this season.
"He will be there," Sheridan teases about the season premiere of Season 2.
In fact, there might be an ongoing Odd Couple vibe happening between the two aliens. Sheridan offers: "He will basically be Harry's roommate for a while, which is very funny. But he will not be there all season. We came up with his exit from the show, which I think will be one of the funniest things we do."
Resident Alien Season 2 premieres on Jan. 26 on SYFY.