Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Resident Alien’s Corey Reynolds and Levi Fiehler

Corey Reynolds and Levi Fiehler are two of the stars of SYFY’s Resident Alien. Based on the popular comic book series by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse, Resident Alien follows the adventures of an alien who crash lands onto Earth and must pass himself off as a small-town human doctor. When he’s roped into solving a local murder, hilarity ensues.

Pop Culturalist spoke with Corey and Levi about their characters in the series, collaborating with showrunner Chris Sheridan, and what audiences can expect from Season 1.

PC: Introduce us to your characters in the series.
Corey: My character is Sheriff Mike. He’s the duly elected sheriff of this town of Patience, Colorado, where the show is set. He’s a highly suspicious, highly skeptical, overly aggressive at times, very serious law enforcement officer and rules the town with an iron fist.

Levi: I like iron fist. I play Mayor Ben Hawthorne, who is originally from Patience, Colorado. I’ve recently moved back to run for office to become mayor of the town. Now I’m dealing with the first murder in this town in a hundred years. I’m a bit in over my head and having a meltdown. I’m just trying not to get impeached. Can you impeach a mayor? [laughs]

Corey: I’m sure you can.

PC: As you guys are preparing to work on a project that’s being adapted from a popular comic book series, how much of the source material do you use as a frame of reference?
Corey: Personally, I had the first issue of Resident Alien, but I didn’t continue reading it because I knew the series was going to be so different. I didn’t want to have any expectations that could potentially be disappointing if it didn’t happen or have any anxiety about something that was happening in the comic version that maybe I wasn’t as into as opposed to the storytelling that we’re doing.

The foundation of the show is rooted in the comic, but the storytelling branches out in some new directions. The comic fans can still watch the show and feel like they’re seeing the characters they know, while the people who aren’t familiar with the comic can come in, watch the show, and still feel fully immersed and embrace the storytelling without needing to know the comic book route.

Levi: I would parrot what Corey said. My character was so different in the comic that I thought it would be more to my benefit and the benefit of the show if I didn’t read it before and let it be its own thing. I figured I would enjoy the comic book after we wrapped, so I wasn’t steering myself in the wrong direction.

PC: You’ve all spoken about the collaborative environment that showrunner Chris Sheridan created on the set. How did that freedom impact the way you approached and shaped your characters?
Corey: It affected everything. I’ve said this before, but I would follow Chris into a lake of fire if he told me it wasn’t hot. Notice I said I would follow him because I’d let him go first to see if he burst into flames. [laughs] He’s a genuinely kind person and extremely talented and gifted with a pen. There’s a tremendous amount of trust that exists on both sides. As we started filming and as we, the actors, started falling into our characters and started the improvisation process, we trusted him because of what he put on the page. Then, the more we improvised, the more he trusted us to give these characters the seasoning that made them unique to us and let us give them a voice in various ways as well. I hadn’t ever worked on a series like that where you can get to the day of filming and literally toss the script out and start new. That’s very, very unique. It serves the show well.

Levi: I would totally agree. You usually get one of two things. It’s either that I’ve worked with people who are like, “This is what’s in the script. I want it verbatim. There’s a comma there, you need to pause.” They’re so specific and holding on so tight. Then, I’ve also worked with people who are writing some other side project while they’re directing the show and they’re very hands-off. They’re like, “No. No. It’s great. Moving on.” They seem like they don’t care. Chris, he’s so hands-on and invested, but without being controlling or holding the leash too tight.

Corey: Excellent way to describe it.

Levi: There’s no ego there, but he cares so much at the same time. He’s my favorite showrunner that I’ve ever worked with.

Corey: Without question. I don’t mean that as an insult to other showrunners that I’ve worked with.

Levi: Me neither.

Corey: You all are awesome, too. But yeah, without question, he’s a unique dude.

PC: Speaking of your characters, if you had to summarize their arc in the first season in one sentence, what would it be?
Levi: His arc would be stepping into his own adultness, finding his own inner strength with everything—with work, family stuff, and standing up for himself in general.

Corey: For Mike, he discovers that he’s only right 99% of the time in his mind. I think that’s about as much as he would give that he’s not right 100% of the time.

Make sure to follow Corey on Twitter. Watch Resident Alien every Wednesday at 10/9c on SYFY.