How Lord of the Rings helped create 2024’s most shocking movie cameo

Stephen Porzio

EXCLUSIVE: The iconic trilogy played a huge role in bringing one of cinema’s all-time great villains back to the big screen. Spoilers ahead.

It’s been a wild time for cameos at the cinema between last month’s Deadpool & Wolverine and now Alien: Romulus.

You can read our review of the latter at this link – we were huge fans.

Here, however, we will be getting into spoilers for the sci-fi horror.

So, if you have not seen Alien: Romulus yet, stop reading any further.

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Still here? Let’s continue.

For those not aware, the now in theatres latest entry in the iconic Alien franchise centres on a group of youngsters (led by rising star Cailee Spaeny) who attempt to pull off an ambitious heist on a spaceship to escape their dire circumstances.

By the time the group arrive on the ship, it has already been overrun by killer xenomorphs – who then begin targeting the amateur thieves.

As this happens, the youngsters turn to the only survivor of the initial attack for help: a severely injured android named Rook – who will be recognisable to fans of the original Alien.

That is because he is a clone of Ash from the 1979 film, the villainous android played by Ian Holm who put the life of a xenomorph over the lives of his crew. This was under orders by his superiors, who wished to study the alien.

Completely hidden from the marketing materials, the fact that Rook looks so much like Ash is particularly impressive given that Holm – also known for his role as Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings movies – passed away in 2020.

During our recent interview with Alien: Romulus co-writer and director Fede Álvarez – which you can watch in full below – we asked how the idea came about to bring Holm back to the franchise.

This is what he said:

“Because the whole approach of the movie is really to take everything from a practical – at least start in a practical place, we knew we were going to build an animatronic. We’re going to build a robot that is going to be a torso. It’s going to be on a table and it is going to drag on the table and it’s going to move around, use the computer.

“We start with the characters. So, the guys from Legacy Effects, that built the xenomorph, also built an amazing animatronic for the character. So, when we were doing that we knew that it meant it could be any likeness. It could have the face of anybody because it really wasn’t going to be an actor.

So, talking with [original Alien director Ridley Scott] about it, Ridley thought – just like I did – that it was kind of unfair that [android character] Bishop – [played by] Lance Henriksen – got to be there many times, you know Michael Fassbender got to play different ones and the only one [who] never made any second appearance was Ian Holm’s likeness.

“We thought it was a good idea to go for it. Obviously, the first thing I did was to talk to his widow and make sure they were okay with it and the kids were okay with it and everybody was on board with this idea.”

As for actually creating the effect, Álvarez revealed to JOE that he was aided by The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

He explained: “We got a lifecast from Ian Holm from Lord of the Rings from 1990… That’s where we started.

“And then obviously, we needed some enhancements, depending on the shot, just for the lip sync and the voice etc. But it was really a whole undertaking.

“I’m really really proud of how it ended up. I can’t wait for people to see it.”