19/11/2023
According to Yaphet Kotto, Ridley Scott told him to annoy Sigourney Weaver off-camera while working on "Alien" (1979), so that there would be tension between their characters. Kotto regretted this, because he really liked Weaver. Kotto also picked fights with Bolaji Badejo, who played the Alien, in order to help his on-screen hatred of the creature.
For the chestburster sequence, John Hurt stuck his head, shoulders and arms through a hole in the mess table, linking up with a mechanical torso that was packed with compressed air (to create the forceful exit of the alien) and lots of animal guts (which, according to Weaver, caused the set to smell horribly). The rest of the cast were not told that real blood and guts were being used, so as to provoke genuine reactions of shock and disgust. Apparently, this worked so well that Kotto went home in complete shock afterwards, locking himself in a room and refusing to talk to his wife for several hours.
SOMETHING SPOILERY THIS WAY COMES: For his character's death, a fiberglass cast of Kotto's head was made, and then filled with pigs' brains. The forehead was made of wax, so that the Alien's teeth could pe*****te it easily. Barbed hooks were fastened to the end of the teeth to make sure it broke the wax surface effectively.
"All of the scenes were challenging, particularly when you know you have to act against sets that were huge. The special effects determined where you could walk. Then you ask yourself how can you survive in acting against a monster. Will you be remembered? Ridley Scott was cool. He gave us a ninety-page outline detailing each of our characters and then he disappeared behind the camera. That's how he directs; he operates his own camera. The 'Alien' script was tight. It was one of the best scripts I have ever read, so there was very little improv." (IMDb)
Happy Birthday, Yaphet Kotto!