This is an interview with Carrie Henn, who played Newt in James Cameron’s Aliens. After Aliens, Carrie no longer pursued acting and continued with her education instead. She later became a teacher. We interviewed Carrie Henn on Episode #85 of the AvPGalaxy Podcast which you can listen to in full below or read on for a full transcription.
Aaron: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come and chat to us. Before we do start being enthusiasts about Aliens, for our listeners who might not be aware, could you tell us a little bit about where life took you after Aliens?
Well shortly after Aliens finished filming my dad, who was in the Air Force at the time. He was stationed at RAF Lakenheath, was actually moved back to station back in America so we came back to America. I contemplated going back into doing something with acting because I live in California now but I wanted to be a normal child and I’d lived in England since I was about two. My mom’s from England and even though I was at a military base, we didn’t necessarily stay on the military base like some Americans do. So it was quite a culture shock coming back to the States and especially coming back to California.
It’s a little different than England and so I wanted to kind of get into American life and make friends. It was difficult at first because I was obviously different cuz not only I’ve been in a movie but also a different accent than a lot of other people. I said things differently so I just continued with that and then I decided to go on and get my education to become a teacher myself.
Aaron: Which is something you’d always wanted to do wasn’t it? I remember reading that teaching was your passion as a kid?
Yeah, as a child, I always enjoyed sort of lining up my dolls, especially my Cabbage Patch Kid and teaching to them and I really enjoyed that kind of stuff.
Aaron: It’s a pretty well-known story that you were offered the audition after Sarah Jackson just discovered you at school and came around taking photos which you would not get away with nowadays. I don’t believe you’ve ever actually talked about the audition process itself and this is something I’d really love to hear about the whole filming experience. Do you remember much about it? Were there any specific scenes that you had to act out from the film?
You know for the most part I really remember. I did a lot of the scenes. I do remember at first a lot of the auditions happened at my elementary school in one of the rooms and so we go there sort of after school and I do my whatever scene they had. I know a couple of times my mom would take me and obviously my brother would have to come with and be stuck sitting out in the hallway. So sometimes they’d invite him to come in and do the scene and that’s how he actually got the part of my brother in the movie was because he had done so many of the scenes with me.
After a while they did one at one point. They called and said that there were about 10 girls that I went to school with. They wanted to have us all go to London for auditions and I guess probably maybe to get to know us a little bit and our personalities. I remember bits and pieces of that one and so they actually hired a tour bus and all the families and the girls, they took us all to London and we met with James Cameron. All these different people and auditioned and everything and then they actually dropped us off at the studios and then they took all the families out to go do things in London and then they came back and obviously we went home.
Shortly after that we got a phone call and said that it was between myself and a girl in the States. It was just down to the two of us and so they were actually flying Sigourney over on Concorde which at the time was pretty impressive, just that you knew someone flying on Concorde but also I was excited because I’d just recently seen Ghostbusters. So I remember going to that interview and just immediately she and I kind of hit it off and towards the end I asked for her autograph.
To be honest with you, I don’t know if I completely understood the process of what was going on and we thought it was a small part in the movie. We didn’t realize that it was as big of a part as it was. I mean we were kind of clueless so I guess everybody was kind of laughing because of how well she and I had kind of hit it off. I guess they pretty much knew that I was gonna get the part then anyways and then shortly after they called and told us we had the part.
Aaron: So that was kind of like a chemistry test then?
I’m sure it was yeah.
Eric: Were you and your parents aware it was meant to be the sequel to Alien at that time because you said you thought the part itself was small or were they just told “Oh it’s a science fiction film in general”?
We were told that it was the sequel to Alien. I don’t know. I know my dad had seen it and I still don’t like scary movies which everybody finds hilarious. Oh yeah I really don’t like scary movies and so my mom had never seen it but Gale Ann Hurd – they had insisted that I watch Alien before we filmed Aliens. So at least I had an idea of what to expect and what it was going to be like but the movies I mean they’re similar but they’re different in so many ways – which makes it hard to compare them really.
Aaron: Well that leads us on to the next question quite nicely then doesn’t it?
Eric: Yeah, we have a tradition on the podcast where we like to ask our guests about the first time, they saw any of the Alien films themselves but of course you’re in a strange position as you weren’t exactly the target demographic for an Alien film and you were actually in the sequel. Now we weren’t sure when or if you’d seen the original but in doing our preparation for this, we saw that you’d mentioned, as you say that James Cameron was actually very adamant that you watch Alien prior to working on his interpretation sequel and that you laughed throughout it. We were hoping you could tell us a little about that first watch of it at that age particularly and if it helped with his intention of helping you get immersed in that world considering your age at the time?
You know I don’t think anything can really help completely get you assimilated to that world and I’m not sure even after watching it if I completely understood everything that I was doing. I was probably about eight maybe just nine when I first watched the movie because I was eight when I tried out for it. I was nine when I filmed and then I was ten when it came out. Yeah, we watched it and I thought it was funny. Now, I’d probably watch it and like scream. I didn’t find Alien to be super scary and I know when we were filming Aliens, James Cameron was always trying to scare me and he would do various things.
I would say “oh that’s just a rubber chicken or what no big deal, it’s just so and so on, an Alien suit” or various things but when I did actually watch Aliens, it was at the premiere down in LA and James Cameron was sitting behind me and I didn’t realize that he was sitting there. I just went in. Everybody was probably looking at me trying to figure out who this kid was going in. I remember just sitting down and then watching it and there’s a scene in Aliens.
Most of them I saw filmed but there’s this one scene I didn’t see it filmed and it was fairly close to the beginning when they’re walking through – the Marines that just come into the Marine Lab and there’s the big canisters that have the Facehuggers in and one jumps forward and everybody kind of – well I jumped and I kind of yelled. I didn’t know James Cameron was sitting behind me and he tapped me on the shoulders which then of course I screamed again. He was so excited because he got me twice. It’s one of the few movies I can watch and not get scared. Well like my cousin a few years ago I went to a convention in London and my cousin’s twins at the time were maybe 13 14 and they wanted to watch Aliens. They insisted on watching it with me and then they said “Can we watch every scary movie with you?” because I had to tell them what was going to happen before it happened so they could prepare for it.
Aaron: What was it about Alien that made you laugh through it? That it was just cheesy to you?
I don’t know. I mean it was probably my eight-year-old self. You have a different sense of humor at that age. I don’t know. I just thought it was funny – like the Alien popping out and I mean now like I said now I would completely freak me out. I have no clue why I laughed.
Eric: Like kids have that thing for slime and gore and stuff when they’re playing yeah.
Exactly. Like my 9-year-old son has a very different sense of humor than I do. The things he finds funny are things that I don’t.
Aaron: So talking Aliens, you and Newt occupy half of the emotional core of that film and so much of that rested on the relationship between Newt and Ripley, you and Sigourney. You spoke in the past about how you still maintain a really close relationship with Sigourney. I was hoping you could just cast your mind back a bit and tell us about how that relationship developed while you’re working on Aliens? I mean did you go and spend time together off the set of the film?
You know a lot of people think that we did it but honestly like I think the marines did a lot of stuff. A lot of them lived together and they did a lot of things together but I didn’t really cuz I was so much younger than the rest of them. It’s not like we went and hung out like now we go to a convention and we all hang out which is nice because I’m an adult now, It’s different. Whereas I think Sigourney and I… like our bonding started when we first met at that one audition. I remember she said she really liked my Velcro shoes and she kept taking them on and off. It was what the scene that we did together was like the one in the Med Lab and so she kept taking them on and off and I think that our relationship kind of started then and she and I… like people kept dying and she and I were one of the few that kind of stayed and we had so many scenes together.
I mean our dressing rooms were right next to each other. They accidentally gave us her room. We got there before she did and they actually gave us her dressing room. We were quickly moved to our correct dressing room but we were right next to each other. She and I were always there. Makeup had to be done. Like my makeup took a lot longer than the guys’ makeup and things like that so I think we yes, we did see each other a lot but we didn’t hang out off the set. I think it just kind of all happened. Sigourney is a very down to earth person and I don’t know what it is or how it happened but we’ve always just…
Aaron: Just naturally effortless?
Yeah and when I see her I can’t even describe… like they were doing a photo shoot for Entertainment Weekly and towards the end I was sitting talking to all the behind the scenes people. They were talking and they said “Oh I’d love to be able to tweet and say oh my gosh she can’t believe what I’m sitting here doing” but she said obviously I can’t tell anyone what I’m doing and I said “Oh I’d like to tweet the same thing”. I said it’s kind of similar for me. I’m more like them because I am a teacher. I’m not Hollywood all the time.
I said “it’s exciting for me to be sitting here in the same room as these people” and the lady’s like “no, I meant sitting here talking to Carrie Henn like it’s no big deal”. I laughed I was like “Oh no-one will know who I am” and then they said as people like Bill Paxton and James Cameron and people like that started leaving, they were saying to me like “What was the best moment that they had seen” and Sigourney and I hadn’t seen each other in several years before that photo shoot. I came out of one side of one room and she came into the other thing at the same time and they said that the best moment of that whole day had been when she and I first saw each other. It was just I saw her and it was like all the years kind of passed. That friend that you never that you might not talk to for… you just kind of pick… that’s kind of how it is with her.
Eric: Because you had the chemistry and especially working with a young child, it’s so important to have that and that absolutely comes out on the screen. You and Sigourney and you have that chemistry like you’re strangers to one another that much like you were making the film. I suppose but that bond comes across because you had that chemistry. It’s very much evident with your performance.
Yeah and I think you can see the progression throughout. We are strangers but we very much had similar experiences. We both lost our family and things like that.
Eric: You talk about makeup but of course Newt famously carries around a doll she named Casey. It served a particularly haunting purpose by being the only thing left behind after her abduction of course just staring life at lifelessly upward through the water but unlike most dolls depicted in films with children of course it consisted only of a head. Was there a reason behind the scenes for Newt who’s basically the survivor of this incredibly traumatic thing that’s gone on with death to basically be carrying around a severed head for emotional support? Or was it more of a technical issue with the props department?
Well let me just tell you I couldn’t wait. I finally got rid of that head because know what a pain it was carrying that. It was kind of awkward to carry around the neck. If you watch the scene with my family when my dad comes back with the Alien on his face, my brother and I were having an argument. I’m hitting him with a doll and that’s actually Casey. Then what it is like, a child has her favorite doll or whatever and throughout everything that happened to me on the colony the head was all that was left of Casey.
Eric: That was very much a deliberate decision and I was rewatching just the scenes you were in today as a refresher. That just occurred even after so many viewings of that film and even then until you mentioned it I hadn’t twigged that she’s got the doll as a whole piece in the tractor.
You know they look very different because she had like nice blonde hair in the tractor whereas the other one was gross and everything. What I loved the doll because I was paid to hit my brother who was sitting off set and couldn’t say or do anything about it.
Now did James Cameron ever speak to you behind the scenes about how Newt and these colonists must have been surviving together so you could have worked that into a particular reaction when they found her when she was watching the cameras or were you basically told that Newt had just been entirely just on her own with no one to depend upon?
I was told that I was by myself completely and to be honest with you I never thought of that aspect of it until you just said it.
Eric: Because also she looked a lot more unhealthy so some of us wondered was she giving any food she found to Newt because it would have been interesting this unseen aspect of the film but yeah if he told you were on your own…
Aaron: Every May 7th there’s a picture of Newt on set getting a birthday cake from Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen and every May 7th somebody has to be that guy or that girl that says that’s not Carrie Henn, that’s Louise Head who was one of your stunt doubles.
Usually it’s me that says that.
Aaron: I believe Kiran Shah was also a stunt double for you so I was also curious as to what your relationships was like with Louise or Kiran if you even interacted with them at all.
I did have some brief interactions with them but to be honest with you usually when they were on set, I was in my dressing room doing my school work so I didn’t… I mean I saw them but it was kind of in passing more than anything else. I probably saw my stunt double a little bit more than I saw Louise only because again she was on set when I was off set and we just would kind of pass each other or whatever.
Aaron: Did you do many stunts yourself? I mean I know you did the water slide. I can’t think of many of those that I know you did.
I did like the one where they pulled me across the floor. Also, before I fall and go down the chute, I’m like climbing up the ladders and I did a lot of that. He did the actual like landing on the wheel whereas I landed on like a foam mattress type thing. He did that but I did a lot of them myself. There weren’t really that many big stunts honestly. I guess it wasn’t quite like today where they have some crazy stunts in that. I didn’t have tons of stunts to do.
Eric: I guess it had to be one of the stunt people when you were surrounded by all the flames in the Queen’s Chamber maybe.
Actually, no that was. Yeah so, I mean it’s a pretty natural reaction of Sigourney because in it she’s like pushing me behind her. Before we were filming, she was very concerned and worried and kept saying make sure you’re behind me, you can’t get in front of me….
Aaron: It was a proper flamethrower.
It was pretty legit. It was a kind of a crazy shell-shocked moment probably for me too. So, I can now as an adult and as a mom myself I can see her concern. At the time I thought what the heck I’m not gonna do anything, like you’re telling me to stay behind you I’m gonna stay behind you.
Eric: Also, it was just lighting up like latex and rubber and the entire set was incredibly flammable to put it mildly.
It was very flammable and it was very hot.
Eric: Yes! While Newt sometimes gets some superficially dismissed as the little kid, it’s her cynicism and Ripley-like willingness to cool grown-ups on their bullshit. Basically, when she feels patronized which to me it really cements her as one of the more believable portrayals of children on film. She’s cynical about motives but she needs honesty to be one of the key ways for Ripley to get through to her. Having made the transition to teaching young children yourself, did you ever find that to look back on that insider’s perspective, a sort of traumatized child so to speak, useful in your approach especially with those who might have been undergoing bullying or stress through say parental divorce or something at home?
You would think so but I think probably not. I mean that kind of stuff is just more human compassion than anything else because definitely as a child I had no clue really the impact that my character even really had on the movie or anything like that. You know I’m kind of far removed from that I didn’t even realize how big Aliens was until about I’m trying to think about eleven years ago maybe. I went to my very first convention in London and then I had no concept of anything.
I remember going… I was pregnant with my daughter and I went to a thing in LA and I remember Gale Ann Hurd was there and Jenette Goldstein was there and Jenette said to me something about conventions and I said “I don’t even know what you’re talking about”. She’s like “Oh you should do them, they’d be great” and I just kind of dismissed it and didn’t really think too much about it and then about 12 months later I was found and invited to one in London and I was blown away by the whole thing. I mean I still am when I go to conventions like I really didn’t have a clue and to me it’s very strange kind of surreal feeling, kind of like my hidden life. You know I don’t even know how to describe it so I think it probably didn’t really have as much of an impact on…
Aaron: So, speaking of conventions then. You’ve probably only really been doing them relatively frequently over the last four or five years or so. At least from my perspective anyway of watching all the appearances show up and everything. I actually had the pleasure of meeting you. The one with Sigourney. So, what’s been some of like some of your more memorable encounters at conventions. I imagine the social side of it with me and all your fellow cast must be a big part of it as well but in terms of like meeting fans and stuff like that?
I mean it is amazing to see all of everybody from Aliens and it’s nice for me to sort of gotten to know them as an adult versus as a child. They always joke around and they’re always saying “Oh you know you feel like we all get together and time hasn’t changed and there’s that in the other and then Carrie walks in the room and we realize how much time has passed”. They always say that it’s like a family reunion for all of us but to be honest with you when I go to those things it’s all about the fans and I try to make it as much… I try not to be… sometimes you’re at busier ones and you feel like you’re a conveyor belt.
Aaron: Yeah it looks so stressful. I mean the way I like watching people just move through sign move through sign. Just like God that must be so hard on them as well on the guests.
Well my thing is I work hard for my money and I know every single person who comes through. They’ve made a conscious effort to spend their money on an autograph for me so I try to get as nice as I possibly can. I know sometimes people get upset with me because I chat to everybody but I try not to make it like a conveyor belt because it’s an experience and it’s an experience for me and it’s very humbling for me as well to talk to everybody and to hear their stories and how Aliens has made such a difference in their life for various reasons or even talked to people who were in the military and they watch this before being deployed.
As a military brat that means a lot to me, to have some sort of something in that. I mean I try to make it all about the fans but I will tell you it is absolutely exhausting. It is really tiring. It sounds silly but it really is. You have to smile. You know you often hear the same story about their favorite part in the movie and you hear the same thing over and over again and you don’t want someone that you don’t want to say to someone “Oh heard that ten times in a row”. You have to be quiet about it.
Aaron: That’s something I’m super conscious of doing when we’re doing interviews like this. I don’t want to ask you something you’ve been asked a thousand times. Yeah, I can understand that.
In interviews a lot of times you get kind of variations of the same question and I try to pull in like a few different things if I can think of something occasionally.
Eric: Yeah, back when you’re actually doing the film itself, you mention… now obviously we had to look around and other interviews so we can do differently but one thing we came across while reading up on other interviews was you’ve mentioned your most fearful moment wasn’t anything to do with acid bleeding monsters or anything. It’s actually having to sit down for lunch while in character as Newt. Now was this something James Cameron decreed as a necessity or was it more like a suggestion from our friend “this can help me get into the role”?
Just sometimes not everybody ate in the cafeteria at the studios but we went and ate at the cafeteria in the studios and you couldn’t change out of your costume to go and change back into it. But I was 9 so you’re a little bit more aware of other people around you and I just remember my first day. I was so worried about going and I remember talking about it on set and I talked about it to my mom and my mom said “Oh, don’t worry about it” and I talked about it to my tutor and she’d said the same thing.
I mean I remember talking about it to Sigourney, to everybody and everybody’s like “Carrie don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine trust me you’re not gonna be the most outlandish person there” and I just couldn’t understand with my crazy hair and all that kind of stuff how I couldn’t be the most outlandish person but they were filming Little Shop of Horrors at the same time at Pinewood. Yeah so, they were all in the cafeteria and they’re in full costume and everything too. So, my tutor had actually bought me these… I don’t know… you don’t really see them anymore but those big old sunglasses… they were massive. My tutor had bought me those and she’s like “just wear these and no one will even notice you”. So, I remember wearing those the first day. I mean I quickly got over that but yeah.
Aaron: I bet you got used to it though when everybody’s literally like that though aren’t they?
You don’t notice it after a while but you can imagine it nine years old, you’re like….
Aaron: Very self-conscious. Speaking of things kids do. You did a hell of a lot of screaming in this film. There’s a transition in the special edition that I’ve always loved where it’s your scream going into a howl of wind after your dad comes back. I was, like Eric says, well watching previous convention interviews and stuff like that and I saw in one you mentioned you ended up with laryngitis following an impromptu scream that James Cameron had requested but you never actually mentioned which scene that was for?
It wasn’t actually for any particular scene. So, throughout the years I’ve heard various things. Teenage girls have said some unkind things to me and one thing they used to always say to me was “You only got the part cuz you can scream that’s all you did” and I never screamed in any of my auditions and then one day James Cameron said to me “You know after you deliver that line I want you to scream” so I said “Okay” so he said “We’ll see how it sounds and then we’ll go from there”. So I remember delivering my lines screaming and no one said cut so I just kind of kept screaming and I looked and everyone was just looking at me and I said “Why is everyone looking at me like nobody told me to stop”.
James Cameron just said “That was really good, we’re gonna use that again” and so then I did continue to use the screaming. I think the laryngitis – it wasn’t any particular scene. I know what scene we were filming at the time but I don’t think it was necessarily that scene. I think it was just a lot of… It was the scene that we were filming was towards the end after Sigourney saves me and we’re climbing up into the spaceship, when we’re getting away from the Queen Alien. We’re climbing up into it and that was it… was right around in that time that we were filming that I got laryngitis but I don’t think it was that particular… I think it was just used my vocal cords a lot, I guess.
Aaron: Yeah fair enough. So often people talk about the best time they had on a film, to make sense obviously, but I want to know something about some of your worst memories from Aliens. I’m gonna go ahead and just assume it was that hive sequence where you were stuck in that little nook and cranny in the hive wall but maybe not?
You assumed correctly. There were many things about that scene that I hated. It was literally a hole I had to crawl through to get into the cocoon. That was kind of through the side. It was made of fiberglass and it could only be broken once.
We had to do several… the scene over and over and over and over again and everything had to be depicted exactly. You’re gonna pull this part Sigourney, you’re gonna pull this part first and then this… everything had to be done and practiced multiple times without it but James Cameron had said to me you cannot break this, you cannot do anything we can’t make it exactly the same again. So I couldn’t actually rest my hands on the glass. I was sitting like on a stool, a wooden stool but that was covered in fiberglass but I couldn’t rest them on there because it could possibly be too much weight and break it.
Aaron: Yeah because you had your hands at an awkward angle, didn’t you?
Yeah so sitting like that for ages and then they pull me out and then I’d be able to walk around a little bit and then they’d put me back in and then walk around a little bit and then… It took several days to actually do that scene because there were so many different aspects and different angles that they got it from and so we were actually on set. We were at the Acton Power Station when we were filming that so we weren’t at Pinewood. I just had a trailer and I didn’t have like a nice bath or shower or anything like that. Like I did in my dressing room back at Pinewood because I could wash and clean up before I went back to the hotel.
So, they offered to provide us with a hotel closer to Acton, to the Power Station and my mom and I, we didn’t, we never wanted to make a fuss and that’s probably the English side of us. We’re like “No, no, no, we’ll just go back to the hotel” so the wardrobe people were lovely and they said “You can take the costume home… just make sure you bring it back”.
So we would go back to our hotel we were staying closer to Pinewood and everybody that worked at the hotel knew what was going on but this was around Christmas time. So I went back to the hotel in full costume and I had slime and everything because the slime is what took so long to get off. So, I had the slime and everything. My hair is all filthy. My face is filthy and I had my winter coat over it with the hood up and they were having like a Christmas ball.
Aaron: You must have got some dodgy looks?
Well it wasn’t too bad. I was able to kind of scamper and quickly go because I knew where at least I knew where everything was so I was able to rush in and get to the elevator and my mom… we were waiting for the elevator and these four people came. These two couples came and they were in tuxedos and like formal dresses and everything.
They were like looking at me and my mom and then we got into the elevator and I just kind of went straight to the back corner because I wanted to be… anyways and then they got in and they like avoided me and they went to the opposite. They were at the front corner… it was far away. Anyways so I mean there was like a lot around that whole thing and then like Sigourney cut her hands on the fiberglass. Yeah it was a really tough scene on so many levels but that was probably the most draining scene out of all of them.
Eric: So, your expressions as Newt and that way you kind of look really browned off. They’re completely real. That wasn’t acting?
Yeah, it’s funny because as a kid there’s little things that you think that like “Oh, man, you’re really gonna get in trouble” and there was a teeny tiny… I mean probably like a needle size piece of fiberglass sticking off right where my hand was and I accidentally bumped it once and I mean I’m sure nobody even noticed it but I was terrified. That somebody noticed I had messed that teeny tiny bit up and I was gonna be in trouble….
Aaron: There’s a quote from you during that scene. I think it’s just hilarious and it was something like you telling Jim that it should be illegal for him to do that to little kids.
I can’t believe I said that. He did bring it up when we were at the San Diego comic-con at the panel and he brought that up there and I was absolutely mortified that I said that to him. Yeah and my mom was in the audience and she’s like “I can’t believe you said that”.
San Diego Comic-Con 2016
Eric: Well as you said earlier a self-declared military brat, how did your parents feel about you appearing in a film with such a heavy military component because it was in many ways a futuristic war movie?
We didn’t really completely understand everything that I was signing up for at the time. It was kind of those things that it fell into our laps. It happened. My parents asked “Do you want to do this? If you want to great. If you don’t that’s great too. It’s completely up to you”. I look at it now. My kids haven’t seen it. They just saw a little bit of that San Diego comic-con convention and they were just like “mom, all the bad language in that. I can’t believe it and all the guns”. I think it was a different time then too than it is now and I know my kids here worse on the playground. The kids say things and all that kind of stuff.
I mean at the time like the guns didn’t bother me because I was at a base that I would see that kind of stuff. I don’t think it necessarily concerned my parents because they knew that I had respect for guns. I mean like I wasn’t gonna go and pick them up. I knew that that wasn’t something I was supposed to do and I knew like saying the bad language and things like that wasn’t something that I was going to do but I don’t remember there ever being like a discussion about it or anything like that… maybe behind the scenes.
Aaron: Were you conscious of them being fake guns?
I wasn’t. Some of them like the ones with that flamethrower at the end that we were talking about earlier. There were some like Sigourney. She had to make sure she got everything right because there was some fake bullets and there was some real ones in there for various things. So I guess I never treated it like it was a fake even though I knew they were. I always treated them like they were real and just stayed away from them.
Aaron: The last Alien film that came out. Alien Covenant. Everyone made a big deal out of the fact that most of the principal cast had body doubles that were massacred in various ways. Now while it wasn’t until Alien 3 that your dummy, even though I don’t think this one was based on you, have that treatment and I still cannot watch those scenes. They are horrific. I turn away every single time. That’s they only scene in any of the Alien films that I have to turn away from nowadays. The autopsy. You had a dummy made for Aliens. Did that creep you out as much as it would creep me out?
I was never really around when it was being used. It was really only used… Sigourney had a bad back and between carrying the guns and carrying a nine-year-old child, it was a concern that it would be too much for her back. So, they decided to create this dummy and see how it was. Now for me I laugh because I can see when it’s the dummy and when it’s not when I watch it now. I’m like “Oh it’s so obvious”. Probably to me because I know it’s not me but that was really the only in time that it was used during it. It was more creepy like I had to have the face done and things like that.
Aaron: A full casting?
Yeah well, I think actually if I remember correctly, I think Louise actually did part of the casting but I had to do the face.
Aaron: I think she did the legs didn’t she?
I think she did if I remember correctly. I don’t remember doing them. I vividly remember the face.
Aaron: I bet. That must have been so claustrophobic?
Yeah it was pretty scary but Stan Winston was there with his guys and they were amazing during the whole thing and just talking to me about it and what exactly they were doing, the process and everything so that was nice.
Eric: What were your memories of Stan Winston who unfortunately passed away a few years ago now?
Yeah, I was really sad when I heard that. As a kid it was always cool to be the youngest one on the set but as I’m getting older, I’m realizing that it’s not nice because I’ll be the one left but he was amazing. He was so nice, so down to earth. I mean all of his guys were fantastic. He was just a really really really nice guy. I really enjoyed working with him and I feel very honored to have had that opportunity.
Aaron: Did you have much interaction with him personally outside of the body casting?
Well he did a lot of things.
Aaron: He did second-unit didn’t he?
Yeah, he did a lot of things on the set. So he was there a lot and it was nice because like in the Med Lab when the Aliens were kind of coming out you everywhere, the Facehuggers and they showed me how everything worked. He would always make sure that I knew how everything was going to work so that I wasn’t surprised by it where I wasn’t scared by everything like that. Everyone was so I think very conscious of it. I probably didn’t realize then as much as I do now growing up like thinking back to it. Even at the San Diego comic-con convention, Gale Anne Hurd made a comment and she said we were always so worried that we’d traumatized you for life and I said “Oh no that didn’t happen so you’re in luck”.
Aaron: Though the special edition restored a lot of the footage, there is still a little bit of you that I’m aware of where Newt is trying to run away from Hicks in the Operation Center and you bite his hand again. That wasn’t included in any of the edits, probably for good purposes actually because he makes a rabies comment about you so that would have been bad for his character. I was just wondering if you recalled any additional stuff that you shot that wasn’t seen in either the theatrical release or the special edition.
That was the only scene that I could think of that I had never actually seen in any of the other releases but I think everything else was in either the theatrical or the special edition.
Aaron: There were very little deleted scenes that were left on the side that at least I’ve seen.
Yeah well there was a huge debate because two of the biggest scenes that they deleted were the ones with my family and then Sigourney – the hearing about her family and both of them were very personal to us because the scenes with my family included my own real brother. So obviously I wanted that and the scenes where she sees the picture of her daughter is actually a picture of her mother.
Eric: That also reinforced the bond that would come with your two characters later on.
Exactly so personal on a personal level but also for our characters it was a very big deal when they were deleted. They were deleted purely for time frame whereas now our movies are how long and… they don’t even think about it but at the time it couldn’t be about a certain amount of time.
Aaron: Yeah, it was all about getting multiple showings in a day in the cinemas.
All about the money.
Eric: You’ve spoken of having written a journal and made a scrapbook during the time on set. Might this ever see the light of day and get published somehow or is it considered too personal because I’m sure if nothing else we’d love to see some pictures you took at the time?
Well it was part of my schooling at the time is I would write a journal about different things that would happen. I do wish I had written more journal entries than I did. I don’t know how many people would be that intrigued by what I have to say. I did at one point think about writing a book, more for my children. Like my grandmother was born in rural Ireland and she wrote a story all about her life for her grandchildren. So I often thought about writing it like for my children or my grandchildren. Someone told me I should write it because not very often times you hear about like a child’s perspective about things like that. I don’t know. I thought about it. I just don’t know how many people would be very intrigued by it besides my family.
Eric: I think a lot of people would be very interested particularly because as you say you had that different perspective. You would have interpreted things that adults wouldn’t and of course you can now look back at it in adult years and say well I should have looked it in this way but because I had the child’s perspective I understand. I do think a lot of it as I said especially if you did any pictures yourself or your family did any pictures you would not believe how ravenous the fandom can be in that. You can have a stick of bubblegum Sigourney Weaver touched and you could probably put it on ebay and it will sell for a million dollars or something. Believe me, there will be interest for it.
I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe one day.
Yeah, I do still have it. She gave it to me. Actually, it’s on my mantelpiece with some other family pictures and it just says To Carrie, Love Sigourney. Yeah, the days that everybody died were actually kind of big for the rest of us that were behind me. Sigourney and I used to joke that we were the orphans that nobody wanted. It was kind of like people were being adopted or maybe like leaving and then left all of us behind.
I mean it was obviously good for us that we didn’t die as well but yeah and as she gave that to me on the last day of filming. It’s still pretty important to me. It has a picture of the two of us in one of our dressing rooms so we were sort of in character. I think she might have been in her costume but not me. I asked, that was my problem, I asked if I could take things.
Aaron: Yeah, you don’t ask, you just take.
I found out later on so I didn’t take things I really wanted. Oddly enough as much as she annoyed me I wanted Casey but I didn’t get to keep her because I was told she might be needed for more scenes. I guess they did actually use her to film the water scene later but I do have random things like the second grade Citizenship Award that they found in Newt’s nest, the dress that I wore in that. I actually have that dress but how many people would know that it was that dress unless I said it. I mean to be honest with you.
Eric: It’s still an important piece like cinema history because that film is so iconic on so many levels.
Yeah, I guess but I don’t know how many people would actually….
Aaron: …instantly recognize it.
I have random things though like I have my original scripts that they gave me that I had actually signed at the time. When we just remodeled our office and I found a letter that came with my final script. So, I ended up framing my final script and my old script in the letter and then I have a bunch of the call sheets so I have random things like that but not anything…
Aaron: There’s no egg sat in the corner?
Because again I was the polite child who asked instead of just taking.
Aaron: Well what was your last day of filming?
Oh goodness I don’t remember what my last day was. I know we had a cake. My grandmother in Chicago had actually died so we ended up having to leave a few days early the set but I was all finished with my filming but then I went back. Well I went to school but then I would have to take days off and I went back for voiceovers and things like that. So, it was in February timeframe when we finished.
Aaron: Given that you decided to pursue a career in teaching, I can’t imagine you were too bothered from a work point of view when they decided to kill off Newt for Alien 3. How did you feel about the way they handled her death in the film?
It was kind of mixed feelings because all through Aliens it had been talked about like “Oh if there’s a sequel it will include the family unit of Hicks, Ripley and Newt” So I knew well beforehand cuz Sigourney actually… so when they cut the scene with my brother in it and Sigourney called to let us know because she wanted Chris to know from her that was what was happening. So when they came out and agreed on that was the script for Alien 3, she actually called to let me know what was going on. So that we had a heads up kind of to be nice and let us know but I mean she sent me this really cool coat and it said “Carrie Alien 3” on it.
She made sure I was included in the premiere of Alien 3 so I got to go to the premiere when I was 10 but really had no meaning to me. I mean I’d met some really cool people there but it really didn’t have much of a meaning to me whereas I was in high school by this stage when Alien 3 came out so I mean I don’t know I think I was like maybe a junior. I was like maybe 16, 15, 16 so for me I got to go to another premiere of a movie where I was older and I knew who the stars were whereas I didn’t know who they were really before.
So it was it was kind of a bummer that it was cut out but it was still a really cool experience to be able to go and be a part of that as a little bit older. Sigourney made sure I was sitting next to her during the… well it was kind of weird because I got out of the limo and I was walking the red carpet and people were like some of them were going ahead of me telling all the press “Oh this is Carrie Henn” and I thought “Why are you telling people that? Nobody will know how I was”.
People were actually taking my picture and they were asking for autographs and everything. That was kind of just weird and then when we got in there, they ushered me in and took me to a seat. They said this is Carrie’s seat and I couldn’t figure out what’s going on and they said “Well no, Sigourney wants you sitting next to her”. She actually covered my eyes for the actual autopsy scene and I will be completely honest I’ve never actually watched the autopsy scene.
Eric: That was in a weird way, the last time Ripley and Newt were on a red carpet together in a kind of weird way even for a film where Newt had her demise. While several of the cast attended the opening of the attraction in London known as Alien War which I went to. Aaron didn’t get to go to it – he was a little whipper-snapper at the time. Now you didn’t get to experience the grand opening but we understand you did go to see it as a I suppose a paying member of the public later on. Could you tell us about your impressions of that and how did they react when they found out they had a genuine survivor of Hadley’s Hope in the group?
Well so I wasn’t able to go. I had actually just been in England about three weeks before the grand opening of Alien War visiting my grandparents but school had started. So I wasn’t able to go back for it but they sent me a message or a letter and said if you’re ever around, please stop by so I don’t know maybe a year or so later, I happen to be in England visiting my grandparents again and my cousin Joanna, my brother and I decided to go to London and so we said “Let’s go check it out” so we went to go check it out of course the pictures are horrible, my hair was a complete mess so I borrowed my brother’s baseball hat and everything.
I mean it was kind of embarrassing to look at now but so we went and we just kind of explained. I said, whoever is in charge are they around and they were kind of dubious of me and then I kind of explained who I was. Then suddenly like everyone’s like moving around and again I really didn’t have a concept of who my character was or anything like that at this stage still. I was in high school so they kind of pulled us off to the side and they said “Do you want to go through it?”
Carrie Henn at Alien War
And I said “Yeah I want to see what it’s all about” so they said “Okay but all the Aliens are coming out as no one’s on break. This is gonna be like a full-on Alien War for you”, So we said “Okay bring it on, no problem”. I was terrified. I caught myself saying lines like “They’re up there”. All these different lines. My cousin and I were like holding on to each other the whole time. Aliens were popping out from all these crazy places and then at the end and we were with a couple of families I think that went in there. They had no clue about anything and then at the end they explained to the families who I was and everything which was kind of weird.
They took me through it and we got to tour it. They closed it down and we got to see everything because it was the actual sets from Aliens and which was really cool to see it and it was neat, they actually had my dummy head. It was kind of creepy to see your head. They had it in an Alien, in an egg.
Eric: Yeah, I kind of remember that vaguely actually.
Yeah it was kind of it was weird and then we did pictures and all that kind of stuff and then the guy who had actually created it had invited us to go to lunch the next day so we went to lunch at Planet Hollywood. It was like right around… and he had requested that I sit… there was an area that had all Aliens memorabilia and so he requested that particular table that was right there. We were sitting there and all these people kept coming over and taking pictures.
Like people walk around take pictures of different memorabilia at places like that and this lady was really rude to me and she’s like “You need to move right now” and I said “What?”. She goes “Move your head, I don’t want your head in my pictures”. I’m like okay so I’m like trying to duck down. “You’re not ducked down enough, duck down more”. She was getting really rude to me so finally the guys like “Do you know who this is… like that picture might be a little bit more interesting if you keep her in it” which was kind of funny. Anyways but Alien War was absolutely amazing. I really wish it was still there.
Eric: I’ve spoken about it before but I don’t know if it’s the set so I’m guessing you had exactly the same experience as me. But we went in to the part where we had to all sit down in an APC or dropship. Just before the Alien comes out because it goes strobe lighting and when the strobes hit, I actually punched the guy in the costume. I’m sure his head wasn’t in the… cuz the head is in the neck but I just hit… just impulse because you have that psychological reaction.
I thought it was gonna be like some of those things where they have like underneath. I was like lifting up my feet. I was screaming. Oh my gosh that was really scary and then I was terrified when they took the person. “It wasn’t one of us, was it? Who did they take?”.
Eric: In my mind that person was just smiling so I turned to my friend, I was thinking was that a plant or were they just laughing because they got people grabbing them in weird places
I was just terrified they had taken someone.
Eric: Yeah because you never know, are they gonna take you or is it going to happen?
Aaron: Like its predecessor Aliens left a huge legacy on the cinematic landscape and the people involved in making it. But for you that legacy wasn’t always such a positive experience when you were younger and you touched on this briefly but I remember reading that you got bullied when you were younger for your role in Aliens? Is that true?
Yeah well so when I moved back to the States, I was in fifth grade which is I think year six in England. So I was what ten years old and I started my school and Aliens had just come out that summer so people didn’t know me as me. They knew me and thought of me as Newt in Aliens and it was a pretty crazy summer for us as far as… we did a lot of flying here and there for press things and that but my mom and dad were very much…
I mean I still had to do the dishes every day and all that kind of stuff. So when I went to school I just thought it would be like my old school that I had gone to since kindergarten. My very first day of school I remember just trying to make new friends and I was sitting talking to a girl on a bench and the whole school surrounded me and started asking me questions. That was kind of weird and then after that there was like a group of girls and they weren’t necessarily very nice to me. They would make fun of me because I had an accent so there are words that I said that did not sound American at all.
I mean I still to this day I can never remember which is the English version of words and which is the American. I’m like vit-a-mins, vite-a-mins which one is American. I mean silly things like that so I was always very conscious of what I said. I would try to say it as American as I could but also on top of having that I was also very different from the other girls because I had been in a movie. I mean let’s be honest girls get really mean. We can be our own worst enemies I think sometimes and that was the age I was when I moved here. So, by sixth grade or year 7 everyone was kind of used to me and it wasn’t as big a deal but then you’re eight and nine was actually our seventh and eighth grade is at a junior high.
So everybody was used to me at my school and then the junior high is like six or seven different schools coming together. So for the first year my seventh grade year it kind of happened the same and then eighth grade it was the same cuz it’s more kids they just keep coming in and a lot of people don’t believe this when they meet me but I’m kind of shy like doing interviews and getting on stage and that is not my comfort zone. It’s a huge step for me to do something like that and so I just became even shyer and I didn’t really talk or say much. It got to the point by the time I hit high school I didn’t even want to talk about Aliens because sometimes you never know, people made up lies.
I mean you look on the internet and I see things that people have written. I’m like I don’t even know who you are and you’re trying to say you’re my best friend like really, you’re not but people would be so mean and hateful and just say unkind things and all at that age I wanted to do is kind of be like everybody else. I’m Carrie. I’m not Newt and so it was hard and it was tough. I wish I had realized then what I realize now is just that so much of it came from jealousy but at the time you don’t realize that and it’s hard to understand that.
Aaron: Well, it’s a tough time anyway isn’t it? I mean that age?
It’s like such an awkward age anyways and then throw that on top of it which probably kind of helps push me towards teaching than anything else. I mean like I went to university and I never told any of my friends… nobody knew anything about Aliens and like the internet wasn’t like it is now so it’s not like you could… email was just… I had just gotten an email through my university and that was like a big deal. Yeah like America Online just coming out type stuff. So really it wasn’t like what it is now and I remember Entertainment Weekly was doing a like “where are they now” type interview and I did one. I did it with them. Never said anything to anybody because none of them knew anything about it.
I did it after school one day and I remember a friend of mine came to school and she walked into class and she put Entertainment Weekly magazine down and she said “What is this?”. I’m like “What are you talking about? I don’t know.” And I opened it up and went “Oh yeah Entertainment Weekly, I did an interview with them” and she’s like “I’ve known you for three years and you’ve never told me this. I open up my magazine and there you are.”
Obviously, I’ve kind of come to terms with everything and once you realize the motive behind so much in life is jealousy, you can kind of just move past it and whatever and I don’t know. It is what it is. I think maybe it made me more… maybe that had more of an impact on me as a teacher than my actual character because like in my class I do not tolerate bullying and I’m pretty strict when it comes to that kind of stuff.
Aaron: Does Aliens crop up in your day to day life anymore or is it all just sort of old hat now for the people that are closest to you?
For the people who are closest to me it is old hat. I mean it’s nice because now I’m married and I have children. Being able to go to conventions and being a part of various things, they get to see a part of my life that not very many people can understand which is really nice. It doesn’t necessarily crop up every day. I’ve lived in the town I lived in since Aliens came out so a lot of people know me.
It’s not really a big deal but I do have like children or grandchildren of people that like maybe my parents knew when I was growing up or I went to school with their aunt or some sort of family member. Sometimes I’ll have random kids come in and they’ll quietly come up to me and say “Hey I have a really big favor to ask?”. Okay thinking what could they possibly need me to do. It’ll be something like “My dad has been a fan of Aliens ever since it came out but since you guys went to school together he was always embarrassed to ask you for your autograph but his birthday’s coming up or Christmas is coming up or whatever.
Would you mind signing his DVD for him?”. Or they’ll ask me random things like that but really it doesn’t impact my daily life and that’s what I like. I can just be me. I mean I can see how in that realm like your head does get kind of big sometimes when you’re at some of these conventions. I mean I don’t think it was quite as bad then as the scrutiny is now maybe. You just didn’t realize it. I mean my parents are pretty down-to-earth. I don’t think they would have let that happen. I mean in my house I was still Carrie. I mean it was no big deal for any of us.
Eric: Back in 2016 a large portion of the fandom were very excited to hear there’s a possibility of the return of Ripley, Hicks and Rebecca Jordan in Neill Blomkamp’s Alien 5. Now we know you previously spoke about your willingness to return for some sort of cameo. We saw some very interesting concept art that was done for the project of Newt which looked very much like you are now?
About four years before that picture came out, I almost had that exact same hairstyle and everything. It was very trippy to see yeah.
Eric: We know he spoke to Michael Biehn and Sigourney but did Neil ever get in touch with you at all even if just for maybe wanting some photographic references or for somehow being involved?
No, I was not. I was as surprised about a lot of the stuff that came out as the fans as well. Interestingly enough, occasionally I will admit my husband is much funnier than I am so occasionally he’ll tweet. He’ll say “Oh I’m you know I’m gonna tweet or whatever”. I’m like okay so he’ll tweet a couple things for me sometimes and the day that that picture came out, my husband had tweeted something because I think it was right around Alien Day and he had tweeted something.
I can’t remember what it was and like I was getting tonnes of notifications about stuff because at the time that he had tweeted that, something was tweeted by Neill Blomkamp and so a lot of people thought there was a connection. I’m like “Dude, you gotta fix this! You rarely tweet for me and when you did…”. So, the picture came out and it eerily looks like me about four years beforehand,
Eric: Yeah because we do notice that at that time that you were using the hashtag #NewtLives and we were thinking, is this building up to something, are you aware?
Someone said to us you have to find a hashtag and just use that hashtag a lot and he’s like “Oh we’ll just do that. That’s a great one cuz you’re still alive” and then all that stuff started coming out and then I’m like “Oh no people are gonna think that there was more to this than I know”. So, my husband was in trouble for that one.
Eric: We know you didn’t pursue acting but we assumed that you’d be interested in reprising than the role if Newt was ever a major character in a potential sequel somehow or even a video game where you could do some voice acting for it?
Yeah, I would be interested in doing stuff like that. I know a few years ago before the whole Alien 5 thing and all that kind of stuff, Ricco who played Frost in Aliens actually had approached me about [Alien Identity]. They were wondering if I would be interested in a small part and I actually was going to play Newt’s mother in the movie. Someone else was gonna play like a grown-up Newt and then they were gonna do flashback scenes with the mom and the daughter and my actual daughter was going to play me.
Aaron: Because you said she looked exactly like you at that age?
Well oddly enough so like you were saying about did I have stuff. I don’t have a lot of stuff from the set but like when we moved from our old house to our current house I had found in a box somewhere which people would probably be amazed that it was just shoved in a box – the dress that I wore to the premiere of Aliens. Then I washed it or whatever and put it in a cupboard somewhere and which again probably people are like “Oh my god I can’t believe it” but my daughter randomly found it. She’s almost 12 and a couple years ago she found it and she came down stairs.
She’s like “Look at this funny dress I just found mom” and she was wearing the dress that I had worn to the premiere and I was just like “Oh my gosh she looks just like me”. So I took a picture and I put it next to a picture I found online of me in the dress and she was like my clone. It was really really weird. It was so weird. I think I’d said to Sigourney because she’s always saying how much my daughter looks like me and then a lot of the cast have met my daughter or have seen pictures of her and everything and they all just said it’s like you walking into the room. Similar personalities.
Aaron: So, Newt has a bit of a legacy herself. It’s not just Aliens, there’s a Newt legacy. You know not long after the film came out Dark Horse Comics did a few series with an adult Newt as the lead alongside Hicks although they were both eventually renamed after Alien 3 came out but the original additions were recently released. So, you’ve got this series of Hicks and Newt going off on their own adventures.
They’ve both shown up again in a new comic book adaption of an alternate Alien 3 script actually where they were both alive and Sigourney was the one that was in stasis. Christopher Golden did a book that revisited Newt’s family and Hadley’s Hope and then that was also adapted into an audio drama where the young Newt was portrayed by a young actress called Marie Doherty. How are you with Newt’s extracurricular adventures after your portrayal in Aliens?
I really didn’t know a lot about it. Recently someone had brought to my attention about comic books but I haven’t seen them or read them or anything like that. My husband read them and then told me a little bit about it but I don’t know. It’s just it’s a very weird feeling to think that something you had a small part in has picked up… you know what I mean like that it becomes kind of bigger than what you ever would have imagined. It’s a very weird feeling. I don’t know. I’m very self-conscious of myself so I don’t necessarily always like watching or looking back but you know I mean like will I be over critical of everything.
Eric: Leading on from that, of course NECA released a special edition action figure of you as Newt and Sigourney as Ripley for a 30th anniversary figure and Super 7 are working on a sort of retro styled version of you too. What is the feeling knowing that there’s not just a version of you but a version of a much younger version of you that’s gonna have thousands possibly millions of collectors having these replicas of this likeness of you?
It is very strange and I know when the ones from NECA came out, they sent me some and so I set some aside for obviously my children and my niece, my brother’s daughter and then some of my family in England. I had my cousins and that I’d ask if they wanted one and so I said to my parents “Do you want one?” And my mom’s like “No, I’m sorry, I don’t want one because it’s really creepy-looking”. There’s a figure that NECA did of just me and then there’s one they did of the two of us. That was kind of because they had decided to do the single one as a San Diego comic-con exclusive and then there was like a lot of backlash I think about that so they decided to do that one.
I mean mine are in a closet. I signed them for my kids and I put them in my closet with a couple of other things that I have set aside for them. Maybe a year later, I finally got the one that had Sigourney holding me and I had set some aside for my kids and my niece again and accidentally I set it on my stairs and my son was quite a bit younger at the time. He actually opened up the package. I signed it and put it on the stairs instead of putting it away but I didn’t I guess relay that to my kids and so my son was playing with it and my daughter freaked out. She’s like “No, that could be worth something”. My husband made sure that they know don’t mess with anything involves Aliens, like you leave that alone.
Anyway, so he then of course was very upset but I said “Oh don’t worry we have an extra one”. So, we have this weird Newt character that plays with Star Wars characters. It’s kind of a trip when I walk in and he’s playing with it. I mean it’s kind of cool that Newt’s like playing with Han Solo and all that kind of stuff but it’s a very weird feeling.
Aaron: Well that’s actually everything from Eric and I. Do you have time for just a couple more from some of our community members? TheSailingRabbit would like to know what it was like working alongside Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton because I don’t think you really get to talk about your interactions with those guys as much. She’s quite curious about those?
It was fun. It was nice. I probably spent more time with Bill Paxton. He was kind of like a big brother on the set or sometimes people refer to him as like uncle Hudson. He was like a big kid. So, on set in between takes often times if they knew there was time or whatever the actors would leave the set and then come back when they need to be.
Hudson usually stayed behind with me because I had like a card table and then they brought like art supplies and different things. Sometimes I do schoolwork there but sometimes I would do art and I would do different things like once I made this long… it was Christmas time and I couldn’t believe nobody decorated. So I made decorations to hang around everywhere and I made this massive chain and Bill Paxton actually stayed and helped me make the chain and he taught me a little bit about our different kinds of things cuz he was really into art. He showed me how to sculpt the clay and do different things like that. So, he and I probably spent the most time together. I didn’t spend as much time with Michael Biehn. He came because there was actually someone else that was Hicks for a little while before.
Aaron: James Remar.
Yeah and so he came a little bit later but again the Marines for the most part the Marines kind of stuck together. I don’t know if that was done on purpose to try to get that Marine bond. I don’t know if that was all done on purpose or not. They were all often together but like I said Bill Paxton and I did become pretty close on the set and we do a lot of things together.
Eric: Do you have any recollection of James Remar? What his performance was like because it’s a bit of a black hole in the fandom. There’s a few pictures of him but nothing else.
I vaguely remember him. He was always very nice to me and obviously as a child I didn’t really know what was going on. We all started at the same hotel. It was a Holiday Inn and a lot of them ended up leaving and getting apartments together and things like that but of course my mom was like “No, no, no, we’re not gonna make a fuss, we’re fine here and don’t worry about us”. So he and I were actually two of the only cast members that actually ended up staying at the Holiday Inn and I guess that’s where kind of everything was discovered and happened but I was unaware of it at the time. Just suddenly he was gone. I mean like oh he’s gone and like I said I didn’t really understand it at the time. Now I do. I saw him. I think it was the convention I met you at. I saw him there. I think it was the one in London and that was kind of a weird feeling like it was kind of strange. I don’t know if he knew who I was or not.
Eric: Samhain13 would like to know if you watched any of the other Alien films that came out after yours and if you did what you thought of them?
Well like I said I’m kind of a wimp. Sigourney and I always joked because she always says that her name should have been Wimply instead of Ripley. I saw Alien 3 in the theater and which one is the one with Winona Ryder? Is that the fourth one? So, I’ve seen both of those ones but I have not seen any of the others
Aaron: That’s everything then. Thank you once again for taking the time to come in answer our questions. I realize we’re taking up quite a bit of your time. Before we do just sign off is there anything that you want to share to our listeners that we just haven’t given you the opportunity with any of our questions? Any specific anecdotes about your time on Aliens or stuff like that that you just want to mention before we disappear?
Okay so in the APC when we’re driving along and Sigourney runs over the Alien and she comes back and she kind of panics because she doesn’t see me and then I’m sitting down then. I gave her the thumbs up but I was talking to Casey. I was talking to the head beforehand. Like “It’s okay it’ll be all right it’s okay” or so. So, when we were filming that part James Cameron said to me “Just talk to Casey. It doesn’t matter what say. Just talk to Casey but like I said it doesn’t matter what you say because we’re not gonna hear you”.
So, I was kind of mumbling to Casey that I felt stupid, this is the dumbest thing I had to do, that I had to talk to this head. Like as a typical nine year old kid, I felt really dumb doing that and then when we were doing the voiceovers, suddenly that scene popped up on the screen. I had a moment of panic and James Cameron’s like “Okay what were you talking about because we’ve decided to put the words to it” and I could not bring myself to tell him about how dumb I felt and all that kind of stuff. So he’s like “Okay, well let’s look at this and see if we can figure out what you’re saying” and that’s what they came up with and it actually fits. Like you can’t really tell that that’s not what I’m saying. I was talking about how dumb it was to talk to a doll’s head and I don’t think I’ve ever actually even told James Cameron that so if he hears this sorry.
Aaron: Yeah okay, thank you. Where can folk find you online if they want to come and interact?
The best place to find me is on Twitter and my handle is @RealCarrieHenn. I try to be interactive as much as I can obviously with life sometimes, there are moments where I’m less active on there. But you can find me there and if I have any conventions or anything like that coming up, I try to post as much stuff on there as possible.
Aaron: Do you have anything coming up?
I don’t right now, no.
Aaron: Well if anybody’s listening to this who is not familiar with our network, we are one of the oldest Alien and Predator communities out there. Sixteen years last year. You can find our main hub on avpgalaxy.net and that is the website of the news, articles, reviews, other podcasts and an old school message board. They still exist. Ours is still thriving but we are still on the modern socials as well. Find us on twitter @avpgalaxy and we’re on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube so thank you everybody for listening.
This is Aaron Percival, Eric Adams and Carrie Henn… signing off.
