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Alan Tudyk is one of those actors who shows up and steals every scene he’s in. In a career that has spanned more than two decades, he has become one of the industry’s most reliable character actors, with credits in theater, film, television, and animation. Yet the actor says he’s never done learning about the craft of acting—from the great practitioners, but also from the actors he’s shared the stage and screen with. Tudyk is currently starring on Syfy series “Resident Alien” as Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle, a small-town physician who isn’t exactly what he appears to be.
Tudyk’s character on “Resident Alien” has a big secret.
“Harry Vanderspeigle is an alien. He wasn’t an alien; he was just some guy who was a doctor who was on vacation at his cabin in a small town in Colorado. But an alien accidentally crashes his spaceship—he was on his way to the earth to destroy all human life—[and] seeks shelter in that cabin and kills him a little bit. Well, he kills him a lot; he’s dead. So then, the alien takes his form and becomes Harry Vanderspeigle. And he gets pulled into this little town when they need a doctor’s help in doing an autopsy, because their doctor was murdered.”
He was excited to explore Harry’s physicality.
“When I first read it, I got excited about the idea [that] he’s learning to use his body, learning how to manipulate the physical form that he’s now taken on. It’s similar to other roles that I’ve played, in a way—I’ve played robots before. They move ergonomically; their form is being manipulated with the most efficiency. And I think that’s what he’s working toward, but he’s bad at it in the beginning…. He’s a very intelligent being, but he’s very stupid about humans. That kind of ignorant curiosity was exciting.”
He uses the theater to “re-teach” himself how to be an actor.
“I’m rereading Uta Hagen right now. I went to Juilliard when I was 23, so damn, that’s a while ago! I felt like if you spent too much time in Hollywood, you’d lose your ability to be what I considered a ‘good actor’…. I have to keep coming back to the theater every couple of years to do a play to re-teach myself how to act.”
The Definitive Guide to Uta Hagen’s Acting Technique His early roles created the template for his career.
“My first play I did, I played 25 roles. It was 25 roles in a [three-person] play. [The other two actors] played two roles throughout the play, and I played all the people around them. So I’d come on as some French person, and then somebody else and somebody else—different costumes, different wigs. Oh, it was so much fun! It really set the stage for what my career would become, because I played a lot of little, very different roles.”
Tudyk’s acting mantra is: “It’s meant to be.”
“I think that’s one of the things you find early on as an actor: It’s meant to be. When you don’t get a job, you console yourself with ‘meant to be.’ But it’s meant to be who gets the role. So try to hold onto that. Everybody has their own timing in this business. Don’t create enemies where there shouldn’t be, or where there aren’t enemies. We’re all in this together, and if you compare yourself to other people, you’re going to just drive yourself crazy. That is the best advice, and the hardest advice to hold onto. Don’t put that energy into blaming others for why something didn’t happen. Work on yourself; be the best you can be. If you’ve got some downtime, maybe read Uta Hagen!”
This story originally appeared in the Feb. 18 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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