Popverse's top stories

• Vision actor Paul Bettany says he's pretty sure he'll be in Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars, but Marvel could change their plans at any moment
• Ask Rosario Dawson, the Daredevil: Born Again cast, the Amazing Digital Circus cast, the Hart of Dixie cast and more questions at Florida Supercon 2026!
• Doctor Who 2026 Christmas episode is cancelled as the BBC announces the future of series is open to bidding

I'll be honest - my favorite character in Alien: Earth was that freaky eye thing. Coming in a very close second, though, was the villainous humanoid synthetic character Kirsh, partially because of how similar he looked to another iconic human replicant of the sci-fi genre - Blade Runner's Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer. And if you share the same reasoning, you might be excited to know that the similarity was entirely on purpose.

Take it from Timothy Olyphant himself.

Justified and Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood star Olyphant recently sat down for an interview published in this month's edition of Empire Magazine. During the wide-ranging discussion, Olyphant pulled back the curtain on how he went about figuring out his character's appearance.

"I was just basically saying," the actor recalled, "'Hey, I like what Rutger Hauer did in Blade Runner, let's do that.' That was the extent of my creative inspiration there. 'Chief Science Officer' doesn't sound like a good role, but if he looks like Rutger Hauer, maybe it's a cool role. A very cool role."

A very cool role indeed, Timothy, and one that may lead to some interesting fan theories online. If you've been in the Alien fandom for any amount of time, you probably already know that there have been some on-and-off, official and unofficial confirmations regarding its shared universe with Blade Runner, which was also directed by Ridley Scott.

And look, we're not saying that Olyphant's comments back up those confirmations in any way... but if you're headed to a scifi-themed Halloween party this year, I know of one costume taht's confuse the living hell out of your friends.

Alien: Earth is streaming now on Hulu. 

The two greatest sci-fi monsters of all time are crash-landing in the heart of pop culture once again, and Popverse is here to tell you how to survive. Explore the interconnected Alien and Predator universe with:

• Popverse's Alien watch order
• Popverse's Predator watch order
• Popverse's Alien timeline
  

...and more. Keep your eyes peeled and remember, if anybody can hear you scream in space, it's us.