For up-and-coming actor Spike Fearn, one of the most challenging aspects about playing Bjorn in Alien: Romulus – director Fede Alvarez’s new entry into sci-fi’s most terrifying film franchise – was his claustrophobia.
Sitting across from me in the Corinthia hotel, where he’ll later get ready for the movie’s London premiere, he recalls a scene where his character had to travel through an air tunnel, which left the 24-year-old “weeping” for the rest of the day. Did it help cure his fear?
“No, it probably made it worse,” he says good-humouredly. “But that’s the thing, when there’s a camera on or you’re acting, you sometimes do stuff you wouldn’t do. If someone says ‘Oh, would you do your own stunt?’ You might say yes, just because the cameras make you feel safe. It’s like a safety blanket. You don’t even have the awareness that you could hurt yourself, you don’t think about that – well, I don’t anyway.”
Fearn grew up in a country town in North West Leicestershire, where his mum encouraged him into “chasing a creative form”; a good outlet for all the energy that teachers struggled to contain. And so, like many other local actors, he joined The Television Workshop and soon became fascinated with the glitz and glamour of cinema, looking up to the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke.
“I saw it [The Television Workshop] as this place I could fuel my energy for a bit. I never looked at it as a realistic career choice, I just looked at it somewhere I could go and be angry or be sad or be funny for those two hours of time once a week.”
Since then, Fearn has played an alpha teen in Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Amy Winehouse’s best friend, Tyler James, in Back To Black. His role as Bjorn, the kind-hearted team-player that helps his fellow space colonisers break into the Romulus space station is his biggest role to date.
That is, until the release of Ella McCay, which wrapped up filming just a few months ago. Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri and Jamie Lee Curtis are just a few members of the star-studded cast, the latter having embedded Fearn with some crucial advice.
“She said to me, If you love to work, work,” Fearn recalls. “You’ve been given an opportunity to be an actor, and not a lot of people that want that opportunity are going to get it. So go out and work.”
The pep talk from the Halloween star may not have happened if Fearn had decided to embark on his “second love”: fashion. He met his friend and now stylist, Colin Zuill, while at college studying fashion design. They’ve helped Fearn pick the Emporio Armani look for the premiere. This black suit from the autumn/winter ’24 collection features a cropped blazer and classic shirt and tie, while embroidery accentuates the sleeve of the right arm: a detail that reminded both Fearn and Zuill of Alien.
“You don’t get the chance to tie in [a premiere look] with a lot of films, because there’s not always a previous story or anything you can base that outfit upon,” explains Zuill. “We took this time to experiment a bit.”
Naturally, Fearn has big opinions on style. While he speaks to me in a black sweatshirt with a white tee poking underneath the collar, tailored trousers and Adidas Sambas, he cites his sartorial inspirations as musicians from the sixties and seventies – “Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger, people like that” – as well as a sprinkling of nineties edge from the likes of Ian Brown or the Gallagher brothers. When building an everyday outfit, Fearn starts with a pair of vintage jeans (his collection includes pieces from the fifties, sixties and seventies) and works from there. It’s hard to imagine that this in-the-know, modish man has had a fashion faux pas.
“I can think of one,” says Zuill, reminding Fearn of when they were around sixteen and went to London Fashion Week.
“We didn’t even get in [to any shows], we just stood outside,” continues Fearn. “We went all the way down to London just to stand outside and one guy took a photo of us, and we never heard from him.”
The memory of the look is a little hazy, but Fearn recalls a denim patchwork bomber jacket accessorised with four or five chains and a ring on every finger.
“So, if that guy is reading this, then send us that photo!” exclaims Fearn. “Because we want to see it!”
Alien: Romulus is available to watch in cinemas from 16 August 2024.