One Twilight Zone Reference Built Alien: Earth’s Most Terrifying Tech Bro — Meet Boy Kavalier
Showrunner Noah Hawley gave actor Samuel Blenkin a specific reference that helped shape the strange CEO at the center of Alien: Earth: the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life.” This comparison guided how Blenkin played Boy Kavalier — a brilliant, unpredictable trillionaire who treats people around him like they must always agree and smile.
- The Twilight Zone reference and why it matters
- How improvisation and direction shaped the boardroom scene
- What the cast says about Kavalier’s motives and management
- Source and related context
The Twilight Zone reference and why it matters
Samuel Blenkin says that when he first auditioned for Boy Kavalier, he struggled to pin down the character until Noah Hawley offered a single, intense comparison. “I got a pretty intense reference from Noah when I first met him,” Blenkin said, referring to the 1961 Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life.”
In that episode, a psychic child controls a town so completely that everyone must obey him or face horrific consequences. Hawley used that dynamic as a lens for Kavalier: not a literal match, but a guide for how people in the scene should react. As Blenkin put it, the reference “was a kind of note for me, not about a performative style, but about what it feels like to be in the room with a character like that.”
How improvisation and direction shaped the boardroom scene
Episode 6 opens with Kavalier in a negotiation with Yutani. The scene’s tone is set early: Kavalier arrives late and puts his bare, dirty feet on the table — a detail Hawley suggested to director Ugla Hauksdóttir. “Noah said to me, ‘He’s somebody who may be super late. He’s not somebody who minds having people wait for him. I think he might even put his dirty feet up on the table,’” Hauksdóttir recalled.
Blenkin added his own instincts during rehearsal. “I read the script, and the first thought I had was that this guy doesn’t wear shoes,” he said. Then, during rehearsal, Blenkin improvised crawling onto the table. Hauksdóttir remembered her reaction: “Sam begins crawling on the table. My instant reaction was that I really loved it, but it’s a bold decision to make as a director when the time is ticking. I thought, If I say yes to this, either we’re gonna make the greatest scene ever, or I’m gonna get fired. But yeah, be bold or go home.”
What the cast says about Kavalier’s motives and management
The series shows Kavalier ordering his Hybrids into a crashed Weyland-Yutani ship full of aliens — a choice many around him think is reckless. Blenkin offered a concise read: Kavalier is driven by boredom. “There’s a sort of existential boredom at the heart of this character,” he said. “When you’re a trillionaire, when you have that much power, your world starts to lose meaning.”
Consequently, Blenkin described Kavalier as a poor manager. “He is definitely not a good CEO. He might be a genius, but he is not able to multitask and manage things at the same time. That’s not the way that his brain works.” The actor also noted Kavalier’s antagonistic posture toward corporate rivals: “He hates Waylend-Yutani,” he said, and added that Kavalier “just wants something interesting to happen,” which explains the risky decision to sacrifice the Hybrids.
Source and related context
Blenkin discussed these points in an interview published alongside coverage of the show. For context about how Kavalier mirrors real-world tech elites, see this piece on tech billionaire behavior and culture. Additionally, note that there are spoilers ahead for Alien: Earth episode 6.
