Recently, Syfy premiered the second season of its hit comedy series, Resident Alien. On the series, Sara Tomko plays Asta, who is the only one who knows Harry (Alan Tudyk)’s secret. Alice Wetterlund plays the role of D’Arcy, who is Asta’s best friend. The two actresses get along really well outside of the series as well as on the show. “In general, my friendship with D'Arcy is very reflective of my friendship with Alice,” said Tomko to SciFi Vision during a recent roundtable interview with the press. “…We are chosen family. She makes me laugh like nobody else, and we just get along so well, and it's so easy when we're in scenes together.”

The actress added that she would like if D’Arcy would find out the truth about Harry.

Wetterlund feels the same. “I truly have never had an experience on set like the one I have working with Sara,” said Wetterlund. “Sara is really different from me. She works really differently, she comes from a completely different artistic background than I do, so we learn a lot from each other and we have since day one, and there's a ton of mutual respect. But I think that what makes our chemistry work so well is the comfort we take in each other…I feel incredibly, incredibly comfortable with her, and acting with Sara is a dream. It's a dream come true. Every moment is magical. I don't have chemistry like that with anybody else.”

“I think that we should just go off the rails and do a love story,” joked Tomko.

Tomko also talked to the changing dynamic between Asta and Harry this season. “In season two, they trust each other enough that she starts to become a bit of a mother hen and pushes him out of the nest and says, ‘Go; fly. Find some other friends; make yourself useful,’ which I think is really great for Asta to take some of the weight off of her shoulders and not be his only friend, but I don't think that it makes them less close. In fact, I think he comes back even more to the nest constantly…So, it's becoming also familial in the same way that she's chosen family with D'Aarcy.”

Wetterlund also touched on how D'Arcy feels about Harry. “[I]f D'Aarcy were to find out maybe that he's from another planet,” said Wetterlund, “she would give him a second look, I think, or be validated in her opinions of him. Like, ‘Well, that's why he's an adult, baby.’ But for now, she's kind of like, ‘Ugh, this guy's weird.’ She doesn't totally trust him, and she knows that Asta and Harry are friends, but she's gonna get get in the way if there's ever a situation where Asta is really she feels like in danger.”

For more, including how Wetterlund thinks D’Arcy feels about Harry and how Tomko views Asta’s role as a mother on the series, watch our portion of the interview and read the full transcript below. Resident Alien airs Wednesdays on Syfy.



Zoom Roundtable
Resident Alien
Sara Tomko and Alice Wetterlund

January 10, 2022

SCIFI VISION:   You two have such a special friendship on the show. Can you talk about coming together and garnering that off screen at on screen and that journey this season between the two of you?

SARA TOMKO:  Yes. We were just talking about how we feel that we are the Thelma and Louise of the show, and we feel like in season two we're just driving a car off into space together, you know? At least, that's Asta's daydream. I just want D'Arcy to find out or know the information, and I'm tired of lying to her. In general, my friendship with D'Arcy is very reflective of my friendship with Alice. We are very much in love. We are chosen family. She makes me laugh like nobody else and we just get along so well. It's so easy when we're in scenes together.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  I truly have never had an experience on set like the one I have working with Sara. Sara is really different from me. She works really differently; she comes from a completely different artistic background than I do, so, we learn a lot from each other, and we have since day one, and there's a ton of mutual respect. But I think that what makes our chemistry work so well is the comfort we take in each other. Sara is like the kind of person that if something goes wrong in your life, you just feel better if she's there. And Sara, for her part, really appreciates me and sees me, sees me really well for who I am and is very accepting. She's just a really accepting person. I feel incredibly, incredibly comfortable with her, and acting with Sarah is a dream. It's a dream come true. Every moment is magical. I don't have chemistry like that with anybody else.

SARA TOMKO:  I think that we should just go off the rails and do a love story.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Honestly, everybody else in the show? Fuck 'em. And you can print that. Can we just have our own show?

[laughter]

QUESTION:  My question is for Sara…I was wondering, you've sent Harry off. You want him to go forth and make friends and to learn how to be his own person, in a way not attached to you. I was wondering how does that change the dynamic of the friendship? Are you guys no longer as close as you were in season one? How does that also impact Alice's character as well, D'Arcy?

SARA TOMKO:  I think, in one, you see Asta and Harry just get to know one another and become friends by the end. In season two, they trust each other enough that she starts to become a bit of a mother hen and pushes him out of the nest and says, “Go; fly. Find some other friends; make yourself useful,” which I think is really great for Asta to take some of the weight off of her shoulders and not be his only friend, but I don't think that it makes them less close. In fact, I think he comes back even more to the nest constantly. He's like, “What now? What now? What else do I need to learn?” So, it's becoming also familial in the same way that she's chosen family with D'Aarcy.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  Yeah, he is a baby. He's a giant baby, Harry is, and he just doesn't have a lot of adult impulses. I think that's why D'Aarcy has just dismissed him. She's just like, “Ugh. He's just this guy who's very quirky; he's very weird, and I've run through him like I do most men in this town. I've been there, done that with Harry.” So, if D'Aarcy were to find out maybe that he's from another planet, she would give him a second look, I think, or be validated in her opinions of him. Like, “Well, that's why he's an adult, baby.” But for now, she's kind of like, “Ugh, this guy's weird.” She doesn't totally trust him, and she knows that Asta and Harry are friends, but she's gonna get get in the way if there's ever a situation where Asta is really she feels like in danger. D'Aarcy is gonna get in the way.

SARA TOMKO:  She's gonna step up.

QUESTION:  Sarah, in many of your interviews, they often talk about how you're related to the character and in an indigenous kind of way. I had a big question about your opinion of the motherhood, and we see more of that at the beginning of season two. She's really trying to accept her faults as a mother. How important is it for you to have this story told, because in so many television shows, young motherhood is kind of vilified? Not only that, it impacts D'Arcy, because she takes on this role as mentor and it seems to almost be interfering with their relationship.

SARA TOMKO:  I think that this theme of motherhood doesn't just run between Asta and Jay. As we were saying, also between Asta and Harry, and I think [when] she sees D'Arcy starting to have a relationship with Jay, there's a jealousy there, because she doesn't get to know Jay in that way, because she really messed things up. She really didn't reveal herself in a very respectful way to her own daughter.

And I think you're right. I think a lot of the times, motherhood on television is vilified in this way of like, “Oh, you're either abandoned or you're on your own. It's a single parenthood, and it feels like this awful thing that's happened to you.” And even though there's a lot that's really hard about motherhood, and I cannot speak from my own experience, I'm not a mother yet, but I've seen a lot of close friends go through these ups and downs being a mother, and the thing that they all relay back to me about watching me on the show is how grateful they are to see a character who's really dealing with the troubles of not being able to be there for her daughter and not being able to have the same relationship that she sees D'Arcy having with her.

And I've had a lot of people reach out and say how relatable that is, to feel like they can see some of  their own struggles in Asta, even if they have their own children and their own thing going on. They really feel like they have this understanding or feel like they're being understood, because she's able to emote in this way that you see on camera that you don't necessarily talk about how hard it is.

And I think her being adopted and already having her own mother abandon her is is a real theme there, and she ends up doing that to Jay, but that's why she keeps her in her life, because she doesn't actually fully abandon the ship, and I think it's really important.

ALICE WETTERLUND:  If I could jump in, because I have a kind of – I'm outside that motherhood chain and indigenous chain perspective on the show as well as in reality, but from an outsider's perspective, it seems like the stories of of displacement, especially familial displacement, it works really well as a proxy for Harry's story. It's obviously a really intensely integral theme to the indigenous experience, both in this country and in Canada, where we're filming. And as we learn and uncover more about residential schools and the chain of adoption and the broken chains of familial relationship and heritage, it comes up more and more in the show, and I think it's kind of, in a lot of ways, the only way that Harry, as an alien from another planet who intensely environmental, is able to kind of begin to understand humanity. So, it's sort of the saving grace that he's where he is. He's in this specific town near this reservation and meets this woman who is adopted who has a daughter that is disconnected from her. It's all like Kismet that it helps Harry understand what he has in common.