How Bola­ji Badejo’s per­for­mance brought Alien’s xenomorph to life

Bola­ji Bade­jo, a 22-year-old Niger­ian study­ing in Lon­don, decid­ed to go out for a drink in Soho one evening in 1979. He had no pri­or act­ing expe­ri­ence, but at near­ly sev­en feet tall, he caught the atten­tion of a cast­ing direc­tor. Direc­tor Rid­ley Scott lat­er recount­ed their first meet­ing in a 2008 inter­view. ​“I said, ​‘Do you want to be in the movies?’ He said ​‘sure,’ and he became the Alien.”

The for­mi­da­ble crea­ture at the heart of Alien, a night­mar­ish bio-mechan­i­cal design from sur­re­al­ist HR Giger, need­ed an actor of a par­tic­u­lar build to play it. ​“We had this vision of a pray­ing man­tis,” Asso­ciate Pro­duc­er Ivor Pow­ell told CNN in 2016, ​“we need­ed some­body incred­i­bly tall with very long legs, so when they crouched down it gave the impres­sion of an insect.”

“He had a fig­ure like a Gia­comet­ti sculp­ture,” Rid­ley Scott said in a 1979 inter­view. If there was any doubt over how much of Badejo’s phys­i­cal­i­ty con­tributed to the ter­ror of the rarely-seen beast, you only need to check out his screen test. A man in only under­wear and an over­sized pros­thet­ic head should by all accounts look laugh­able, but Badejo’s extra­or­di­nary, rangy frame made him the per­fect fit for the role.

As revealed in the 1979 doc­u­men­tary Giger’s Alien, the xenomorph suit was applied in 15 sep­a­rate pieces over a one-piece black body suit. Each ele­ment was painstak­ing­ly applied, with the head put on last. Thou­sands of tubes of lubri­cant were used to attain the effect of slime pro­trud­ing from the monster’s mouth. This was the final touch to ensure a sti­fling expe­ri­ence for the actor under­neath it all.

The four months Bade­jo spent on the pro­duc­tion were made up of uncom­fort­able squeezes into vents and small spaces aboard the set of the Nos­tro­mo, which was only six foot six inch­es high. ​“I had to be very care­ful how I spun around or did any­thing,” Bade­jo explained, ​“It was ter­ri­bly hot, espe­cial­ly the head. I could only have it on for about 15 or 20 min­utes at a time. When I took it off, my head would be soaked”.

The scene where the xenomorph descends onto Brett (Har­ry Dean Stan­ton) was a ter­ri­ble ordeal for the cos­tumed actor. As doc­u­ment­ed in the Cine­fan­tas­tique inter­view, Bade­jo was sus­pend­ed upside down, feel­ing dizzy as blood rushed to his head, and the stunt­man who took his place end­ed up pass­ing out. Scott was forced to use close-ups and quick cuts to sug­gest the action instead.

An ele­ment of Alien often over­looked, and all but aban­doned for its sequels, is the ele­gant flu­id­i­ty of the xenomorph’s move­ments. ​“The idea was that the crea­ture was sup­posed to be grace­ful as well as vicious,” Bade­jo said, ​“requir­ing slow, delib­er­ate move­ments”. His fre­quent dis­cus­sions with Scott lead him to take Tai Chi class­es, vig­or­ous­ly rehears­ing the creature’s glid­ing move­ment and man­tis-like pos­ture. There were even mime lessons once the deci­sion was made for the xenomorph to be sight­less, dri­ven by vio­lent instinct.

These move­ments can best be seen in how the xenomorph con­fronts Lam­bert (Cartwright). It stands upright, remain­ing still and intim­i­dat­ing her with its sheer size before mak­ing a move. When it does, it glides for­ward, its arms out­stretched and hands sway­ing in an almost bal­let­ic manner.

On set, Bade­jo was described as qui­et, polite and hum­ble by his co-work­ers, but rarely inter­act­ed with them. ​“Because he was kept apart from us and we nev­er chat­ted, when it came to see­ing him as this crea­ture dur­ing a scene, it was elec­tri­fy­ing,” Sigour­ney Weaver said in 2010. At an Alien ret­ro­spec­tive pan­el in 2013, Veron­i­ca Cartwright explained: ​“Peo­ple say ​‘how did you make your­self scared?’ I didn’t do any­thing; I just had to look at him.”

Imme­di­ate­ly after film­ing Alien Bade­jo spoke of his wish to be ​“giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty of doing a fol­low-up, if there is one,” but he nev­er appeared in the fran­chise again. In fact, it was his final appear­ance in any film. Accord­ing to an inter­view with the Bade­jo fam­i­ly, Bola­ji con­sid­ered pur­su­ing a career in act­ing, but ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to move back to Nige­ria in 1980. Once back home, he joined his uncle’s trade, and by 1983 he had opened his own art gallery.

On 22 Decem­ber, 1992, Bola­ji fell ill and was rushed to hos­pi­tal. He died of sick­le cell anaemia – a hered­i­tary con­di­tion that had pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en the life of his youngest broth­er – leav­ing behind two chil­dren, Bibi and Yin­ka. He was just 39. ​“It’s a huge shame not to be able to speak to him about Alien and a great many oth­er things as I have grown up and am now an adult,” Bibi lament­ed, ​“That said, it is incred­i­ble to dis­cov­er the lega­cy he has left.”