Essie Davis is no longer just an “Alien” fan, but her affection for the iconic science-fiction franchise hasn’t waned now that the Australian actor is a key part of the saga’s world thanks to “Alien: Earth.” “When this one popped into my inbox — ‘Alien!’ — I was just super thrilled,” Davis tells Variety AU/NZ. One of the reasons behind that excitement: stepping into a saga that has always put women at its centre, starting with Sigourney Weaver’s heroine Ellen Ripley, and also including Winona Ryder in “Alien: Resurrection,” Noomi Rapace in “Prometheus,” Katherine Waterston in “Alien: Covenant” and Cailee Spaeny in “Alien: Romulus.”
“It’s an honour. It’s a real honour to be a part of it. And I would say that Sigourney was leading the way with that feminist, amazing action hero,” Davis says. “As well as a scientist — as well as, clearly, a smart woman who is essentially protecting earth.”
Nearly five decades after the franchise began, Davis has ample company in following in Weaver’s footsteps in “Alien’s” first TV offshoot. “Sydney Chandler, who is my baby, my hybrid creation of child mind in the body of an adult woman, she is an awesome, dynamic, extraordinary action hero with a child’s pursuit of justice,” she explains. “And I think that both she and the my two other ‘Lost Boy’ girls, played by Erana James and Lily Newmark, they are also quite dynamic young women who are action heroes in their own right as well.”
In Davis’ third small-screen role of 2025 so far after the ripped-from-the-headlines “Apple Cider Vinegar” and page-to-screen adaptation “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” she portrays Dame Sylvia. “I am a leading scientist in the world, an Australian leading scientist in the world, who is definitely at the forefront of this creation of these hybrids,” Davis advises. “And who knows — there might be a little action coming,”
In helping to craft and oversee “Alien: Earth’s” synthetic beings with human consciousness, the Tasmania-born star’s character is an employee for Prodigy Corporation, one of five big companies who control the planet and beyond in the show’s 2120 setting. Dame Sylvia is also the closest thing that Prodigy’s new creations, not only Chandler’s Wendy but also Slightly (Adarsh Gourav), Curly (James), Nibs (Newmark) and Smee (Jonathan Ajayi), now have to a mother.
Taking place two years before the events of Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 film and also featuring Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson and Sandra Yi Sencindiver, “Alien: Earth” still boasts a pivotal space vessel, a crew en route home and lethal extra-terrestrial passengers. Just like on the Nostromo, the humans onboard the Maginot aren’t blessed with an uneventful journey. Created by Noah Hawley, who previously demonstrated his knack for expanding upon excellent cinema on television with the “Fargo” TV series, “Alien: Earth” sends its central ship crashing onto the one place that no one should ever Xenomorphs to roam, however.
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Then, after plummeting into the part of the planet controlled by Prodigy and its ambitious wunderkind CEO Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), the series dispatches Dame Sylvia’s hybrids to help sift through the aftermath — and face off against a range of otherworldly and deadly critters of all shapes and sizes, familiar aliens and unsettling newcomers to the saga alike.
As her “Alien: Earth” character plays guardian to ‘The Lost Boys,’ as Wendy and her peers are dubbed in the series, Davis adds another role with a parental angle to her resume. Australian horror great “The Babadook,” the Venice-premiering “Babyteeth,” New Zealand standout “The Justice of Bunny King,” UK streaming hit “One Day” and the ripped-from-the-headlines “Apple Cider Vinegar” are among the recent examples. There’s no mistaking Davis’ work in any of these films and TV shows for each other, though, or her roles in them, no matter how desperately the universe appeared to want her to simply repeat “The Babadook” after the success of Jennifer Kent’s 2014 film based on the offers that then came her way.
“I feel very fortunate,” says Davis about her career so far and the path leading her to “Alien: Earth.” “I would have to say I have had an incredibly fulfilling career that has led me all over the world. And I have had so much joy and satisfaction in so many jobs that I’ve done.”
“But I have also always tried to find work that is not like work I’ve done before.” She continues: “so after ‘The Babadook,’ I was probably offered 100 distressed mothers in horror films, and I chose not to take those roles because I really wanted to find the next thing.”
Still, while unpacking what it means to be a parent in a variety of different ways “has just been really great projects coming my way,” Davis is proud to be adding to the wealth of on-screen interpretations of motherhood and helping to buck stereotypes in the process. “I have to say, it’s so interesting watching a lot of work where a younger character’s annoying mother comes in and annoys them. It seems to be quite frequent in our library of film and television,” she advises.
“I think I’m a pretty good mother myself, but I think it’s really important to show mothers — characters who happen to be mothers — being a) amazing, b) resilient, c) terrible. I think that what, say a quarter of our population are mothers? And I would say that every one of them is different and each of them has a different kind of character or role or behaviour that they exhibit.”
The same eagerness to step into an array of characters’ shoes and take on on fresh challenges was true for Davis after playing Phryne Fisher in three seasons of “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” between 2012–15, as well as in 2020 cinema release “Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears.” “‘Miss Fisher’ could have gone on forever, but I don’t want to just do the same thing forever. I’m really interested in investigating — and I get bored of myself. I like to enter the world of new characters and new writing and new ideas, and be pushed by new directors. I think that that is what satisfies me as a creative person,” Davis notes.
Of the fact that she’s been all over screens across the past 18 months or so — 2025’s trio of shows, plus both the new take on “One Day” and Australian miniseries “Exposure” in 2024 — Davis remarks that “it’s lovely to be involved in so many really diverse things, and particularly things that seem to really resonate with people.”
“I think ‘One Day’ sort of blew everyone’s socks off because people were so moved by it. And ‘Apple Cider Vinegar’ was such a joyous thrill — and also, how terrifying that influencers have so much power in our world today?”
“I’m very fortunate. Most of these things have been quite tiny little moments in time — little moments that I got a chance to work on when this went on hold because of the SAG-AFTRA strike,” Davis reflects. “And it’s just fortunate that we’re still making Australian dramas, which are very important, and I also still have an international career — which is quite delightful to be able to zip around the world and make good things.”
Part of that good luck has involved hopping between more intimate fare and franchises. Since Davis’ first screen role in 1993 Australian film “The Custodian” (“that was a major super-fast learning curve in how to act on-screen; “I’m very lucky that I had three very fine actors holding my hand in that job, because Barry Otto, Hugo Weaving and Anthony LaPaglia did that, and it was wonderful,” she reflects), everything from “Dad and Dave: On Our Selection,” “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” two “Matrix” movies and “Australia” to “South Solitary,” “The Slap,” “Game of Thrones” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” also sits on her resume, as do “Assassin’s Creed,” “True History of the Kelly Gang” and “Nitram” (directed, like “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” by her husband Justin Kurzel) and much more. For her efforts on the stage, Davis won an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance in 2003 for “A Streetcar Named Desire” and was nominated for a Tony Award in 2004 for “Jumpers.”
“Alien: Earth” hovers at the larger end of the scale, but Davis says projects with bigger budgets are “still character-driven work. I would say that it’s just gobsmacking what money can buy.”
“Certainly in ‘Game of Thrones,’ we had one scene we filmed over three days with 400 extras in immaculate hair and makeup and costume. And they were phenomenal. And we had five camera crews on that one scene for three days. Whereas I would say ‘True History of the Kelly Gang,’ we had one cameraman, 30 days to shoot three hours of an amazing story, period drama, in very little time with very few resources.”
“So I think that budget is what it gives you to play with in the edit, which is everything, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not more creative or resilient or inventive in a smaller budget.”
Every part for Davis, no matter the scale of the film or television show, has added to a dream that she has held dear since she was a child, and one that had her peering above long before she was in a series about aliens wreaking havoc on earth. “I used to run around on my lawn in the dark in Tasmania, wishing on the moon that I would be the greatest actor in the history of the world and the future of the world to come. So I had my eyes set high,” she shares.