I spoke with Fargo’s David Rysdahl who is currently filming Noah Hawley’s Alien series in Thailand. Of course, being a massive fan of all things Alien, I had to ask about the experience. Sadly, he gave no spoilers (naturally), but he does display great confidence in the upcoming series.
“I think you’ll be very happy with what’s happening on Alien. It’s been very fun to shoot it,” Rysdahl enthused.
Rysdahl first worked with writer / director Noah Hawley on the masterpiece Fargo Year 5. There, Rysdahl plays Wayne Lyon, son of Jennifer Jason Leigh‘s Lorraine Lyon and husband to Juno Temple’s Dot. Rysdahl gives a stand-out performance admist the brilliant ensemble, and he stands out, in part, because he’s the orange in a bag of apples. What I mean by that is, amidst a massive cast of intense and vaguely threatening personalities, he pops because he’s playing a really good guy.
Originally from rural Minnesota, Rysdahl leveraged an intimate knowledge of that whole Minnesota vibe to bring as genuine a perspective to Wayne Lyon as he could.
“This idea of optimism and being there for your neighbor when it’s zero degrees outside… It’s these neighborly things that I love about Wayne,” Rysdahl said. “To be able to spend six months in a really good guy’s skin, I really treasured that.”
Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, Rysdahl talks about the beauty of playing a really good guy. He goes into more detail about how he found Wayne Lyon as a character and how he leveraged local knowledge of Minnesota to bring authenticity to the character. He also talks about the great differences between Wayne and his intense mother, Lorraine, as well as what it was like filming that great season-ending dinner sequence with Juno Temple and Sam Spruell.
Fargo streams exclusively on Hulu.
