Resident Alien: Sara Tomko, Alice Wetterlund on Asta/D’Arcy, Season 3 (2024)

Posted in: SYFY, TV | Tagged: alan tudyk, Alice Wetterlund, interview, peaco*ck, Resident Alien, Sara Tomko, syfy

Resident Alien stars Sara Tomko and Alice Wetterlund discussed their growth as Asta and D'Arcy, their friendship, difficult scenes, and more.

Sara Tomko's Asta Twelvetrees and Alice Wetterlund's D'Arcy Bloom have become unsung heroes in the Syfy series Resident Alien. Together, they helped Dr. Harry Vanderspeigle (Alan Tudyk), rather than the extraterrestrial assuming his form, turn over a new leaf once set on destroying Earth – now wanting to save it from the threat of the Grey aliens. While becoming best friends in the show and in real life, Tomko and Wetterlund spoke to Bleeding Cool about Asta and D'Arcy's dynamic, how spontaneity became the norm, their most difficult arcs of the show, and what to expect in season three.

Resident Alien: Sara Tomko and Alice Wetterlund on Asta and D'Arcy's Evolution as Besties

Bleeding Cool: What's been the secret to your chemistry, and why do Asta and D'Arcy work so well together?

Wetterlund: It's the secret sauce. I think it's you. You're the sauce.

Tomko: Aww. Are you the meal?

Wetterlund: No, I'm not the meal.

Tomko: [laughs]. No. Come on. We create the sauce. It's our actual friendship, which we formed early, like day one. We had incredible chemistry, and that exploded on screen. Chris [Sheridan] saw that as a writer, and then they just came up with more scenarios for us to be together to the point where now, in season three, they've made us move in together because they can't get enough of. They can't get enough stuff.

Wetterlund: It becomes easy to write for people who have good chemistry together because you see it like you know who they are, and you know who they are to each other.

Tomko: That's a yeah, the secret sauce is real friendship. We're being honest.

Growing together as characters with Alan's character, is there something organic or something you fine-tuned throughout the entire show? What part of it was the writing, and what part was it improvised in the scenes?

Tomko: Interesting. We don't have a lot of time to rehearse or work anything out before we get there. We have about two to three hours for one scene if we're lucky, which requires about 15 minutes of talking through it and saying, "Okay, let's go here. Let's go there. Make sure that this is the outline." Most of it gets done on the spot as we're rolling out. Alan will try different things. Alice will try different things, and I will try different things sometimes, but I'm much more straight man like reactionary to the comedians in the room. Taking in my surroundings in a different way, my preparation is different. As a whole group dynamic, we all show up with our different ways of doing, and then somehow, it still comes to life when we do it together.

Wetterlund: We trust each other as people and as professionals. Nobody on this show ever is like a nightmare on set. Nobody's late except me, sometimes one time or two. Anyway, people are showing up for this show. Everybody who works on the series shows up to tell the story, and that makes it easy to trust each other. I will say that, in terms of prep, I go over the scenes with whoever I'm working with that day; in the makeup trailer, there are times we are sitting in the chair, so sometimes you'll run the script. I know Levi [Fiehler], for his part, has a full-on anxiety attack for 48 hours before each scene. Meredith [Garretson] is a future Oscar winner, easily.

Tomko: They get to have so much fun this season. Not to say that all of our characters haven't had awesome storylines; it's that this season you get to see a vulnerability for new characters like me or Ben and Kate and what they're going through, and it's cool. Normally, comedic characters have some real dramatic moments, and normally dramatic characters are having some comedic moments, and it's a little uncomfortable, but we're making it work.

What has been your most difficult journey as your respective characters for Asta and D'Arcy? Has it happened yet, or will we see it in 'Resident Alien' season three?

Tomko: That's a good question.

Wetterlund: I found the relationship with Elliot (Justin Rain) to be hardest because, as an actor, I've never had to portray falling in love onscreen. I'm a comedian by trade, and that's where I comedically act and so doing that, I was nervous and scared to show that vulnerability because, in the back of my head, I was like, "Am I being gross?" Fortunately, I had an incredible actor Justin Rain as a scene partner, and he is so much like you [to Tomko], so generous and grounded and keeps it 100 percent. He's not a goofball in any way, but he also is reliable as a scene partner. He never delivers something unexpected. It made it a lot easier, but it was scary for me to be on screen in that way. With those and the breakup, I was like, "God, is this believable? Is this real?" It's a lot of feelings. It was like it, but I took I learned so much from my scene partners.

Tomko: You've gone through a lot of stuff, haven't you, babe? [Makes wave motions with right arm] Darcy's over here drinking. Chris is trying to wake up to her life. My hardest moment was the day I read in the script that [Harry] erases my memory, and I missed the date with my daughter, and I hated Chris Sheridan for that. That hurt so bad reading it and then having to play that out. The discovery that I missed it, that that he messed with my head. That and I kill a human being. Those were both hard things for me to experience, to endure as a character, but also when I'm surrounded by so many comedians, and everyone's having such a fun dynamic. I'm over here in the corner at 'Blair Witch'-ing, like having an experience because I'm like going through some trauma [laughs]. That was also hard as an actor, like having to come prepared in a different way to set for those scenes. When it's not so comedic at all.

Wetterlund: Doing comedy on this show is a fun environment to work in. When you're doing a comedic scene, it's so funny, and everybody's having such a great time, but then the crew gets into that mode. They must shoot a dramatic scene, comedy scene, dramatic scene, comedy scene, and they must bounce back and forth between those two vibes. It becomes hard as the actor because you are trying to pretend that you're grieving your lost family member in the middle of a raging party, like in a circus.

Tomko: I remember I had to tell one of the ADs, Jody [Ryan]. I said I had to go up to Jody and Robbie [Duncan McNeill] and say, "Guys, if you see me in a corner with my back turned to everyone, don't be alarmed. That's where I am. Just tapping lightly on the shoulder when you're ready." I had to go and get away from all the fun [waves hands in front of her face] and have a traumatic experience. Those were hard for me both as a character and an actor, but they were also the most rewarding because I learned so much about my process and about Asta's process on how to grow out of trauma.

Season three of Resident Alien, which also stars Corey Reynolds, Levi Fiehler, Elizabeth Bowen, Meredith Garretson, Linda Hamilton, and Judah Prehn, premieres February 14 on SYFY and is available to stream on Peaco*ck.