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Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, the Nostromo's navigator. Cartwright had previous experience in horror and science fiction films, having acted in The Birds (1963) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).[36] She originally read for the role of Ripley, and was not informed that she had instead been cast as Lambert until she arrived in London for wardrobe.[29][37] She disliked the character's emotional weakness,[34] but nevertheless accepted the role: "They convinced me that I was the audience's fears; I was a reflection of what the audience is feeling."[29] Cartwright won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.[5][6]
Ian Holm as Ash, the ship's Science Officer who is revealed to be an android under orders to bring the Alien back to the Nostromo's corporate employers. Holm, a character actor who in 1979 had already been in twenty films, was the most experienced actor cast for Alien.[21]
John Hurt as Kane, the Executive Officer who becomes the host for the Alien. Hurt was Scott's first choice for the role but was contracted on a film in South Africa during Alien's filming dates, so Jon Finch was cast as Kane instead.[34] However, Finch became ill during the first day of shooting and was diagnosed with severe diabetes, which had also exacerbated a case of bronchitis.[38] By this point, Hurt was in London, his South African project having fallen through, and he quickly replaced Finch.[29][38] His performance earned him a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[6]
Yaphet Kotto as Parker, the Chief Engineer. Kotto was chosen partly to add diversity to the cast and give the Nostromo crew an international flavor.[29]
Tom Skerritt as Dallas, the Captain of the Nostromo. Skerritt had been approached early in the film's development but declined as it did not yet have a director and had a very low budget. Later, when Scott was attached as director and the budget had been doubled, Skerritt accepted the role of Dallas.[26][29]
Harry Dean Stanton as Brett, the Engineering Technician. Stanton's first words to Scott during his audition were "I don't like sci fi or monster movies."[26] Scott was amused and convinced Stanton to take the role after reassuring him that Alien would actually be a thriller more akin to Ten Little Indians.[26]
Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the Warrant Officer onboard the Nostromo. The decision to make the lead character a woman was made by Giler and Hill, who felt that this would help Alien stand out in the otherwise male-dominated genre of science fiction.[29] Weaver, who had Broadway experience but was relatively unknown in film, impressed Scott, Giler, and Hill with her audition. She was the last actor to be cast for the film, and performed most of her screen tests in-studio as the sets were being built.[29][34] The role of Ripley was Weaver's first leading role in a motion picture, and earned her nominations for a Saturn Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role.[6]
To assist the actors in preparing for their roles, Ridley Scott wrote several pages of backstory for each character explaining their histories.[22][39] He filmed many of their rehearsals in order to capture spontaneity and improvisation, and tensions between some of the cast members, particularly towards the less-experienced Weaver, translated convincingly on film as tension between their respective characters.[39]

Film critic Roger Ebert has noted that the actors in Alien were older than was typical in thriller films at the time, and that this helped make the characters more convincing:

[N]one of them were particularly young. Tom Skerritt, the captain, was 46, Hurt was 39 but looked older, Holm was 48, Harry Dean Stanton was 53, Yaphet Kotto was 42, and only Veronica Cartwright at 29 and Weaver at 30 were in the age range of the usual thriller cast. Many recent action pictures have improbably young actors cast as key roles or sidekicks, but by skewing older, Alien achieves a certain texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers but workers, hired by a company to return 20 million tons of ore to Earth.[10]

David McIntee, author of Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films, has praised the acting and characterizations in Alien. He notes that part of the film's effectiveness in frightening viewers "comes from the fact that the audience can all identify with the characters... Everyone aboard the Nostromo is a normal, everyday, working Joe just like the rest of us. They just happen to live and work in the future."[40]

[edit] Set design and filming
Alien was filmed over fourteen weeks from July 5 to October 21, 1978. Principal photography took place at Shepperton Studios in London, while model and miniature filming was done at Bray Studios in Water Oakley.[30] Production time was short due to the film's low budget and pressure from 20th Century Fox to finish on schedule.[39] A crew of over 200 workmen and technicians constructed the three principal sets: The surface of the alien planetoid and the interiors of the Nostromo and derelict spacecraft.[14] Art Director Les Dilley created 1/24th scale miniatures of the planetoid's surface and derelict spacecraft based on Giger's designs, then made moulds and casts and scaled them up as diagrams for the wood and fiberglass forms of the sets.[26] Tons of sand, plaster, fiberglass, rock, and gravel were shipped into the studio to sculpt a desert landscape for the planetoid's surface, which the actors would walk across wearing space suit costumes.[14] The suits themselves were thick, bulky, and lined with nylon, had no cooling systems and, initially, no venting for their exhaled carbon dioxide to escape.[41] Combined with a heat wave, these conditions nearly caused the actors to pass out and nurses had to be kept on-hand with oxygen tanks to help keep them going.[39][41] For scenes showing the exterior of the Nostromo a 58-foot (18 m) landing leg was constructed to give a sense of the ship's size. Ridley Scott still did not think that it looked large enough, so he had his two sons and the son of one of the cameramen stand in for the regular actors, wearing smaller space suits in order to make the set pieces seem larger.[41][42] The same technique was used for the scene in which the crew members encounter the dead alien creature in the derelict spacecraft. The children nearly collapsed due to the heat of the suits, and eventually oxygen systems were added to assist the actors in breathing.[39][41]

The sets of the Nostromo's three decks were each created almost entirely in one piece, with each deck occupying a separate stage and the various rooms connected via corridors. To move around the sets the actors had to navigate through the hallways of the ship, adding to the film's sense of claustrophobia and realism.[14][39][43] The sets used large transistors and low-resolution computer screens to give the ship a "used", industrial look and make it appear as though it was constructed of "retrofitted old technology".[42] Ron Cobb created industrial-style symbols and color-coded signs for various areas and aspects of the ship.[42] The company that owns the Nostromo is not named in the film, and is referred to by the characters as "the company". However, the name and logo of "Weylan-Yutani" appears on several set pieces and props such as computer monitors and beer cans.[28] Cobb created the name to imply a business alliance between Britain and Japan, deriving "Weylan" from the British Leyland Motor Corporation and "Yutani" from the name of his Japanese neighbor.[27][44] The 1986 sequel Aliens named the company as "Weyland-Yutani",[27][45] and it has remained a central aspect of the film franchise.

Art Director Roger Christian used scrap metal and parts to create set pieces and props in order to save money, a technique he had used while working on Star Wars.[42][46] Some of the Nostromo's corridors were created from portions of scrapped bomber aircraft, and a mirror was used to create the illusion of longer corridors in the below-deck area.[42] Special effects supervisors Brian Johnson and Nick Allder made many of the set pieces and props actually function, including moving chairs, computer monitors, motion trackers, and flamethrowers.[14][38] Four matching cats were used to portray Jones, the Nostromo crew's pet.[30] During filming Sigourney Weaver discovered that she was allergic to the combination of cat hair and the glycerin placed on the actors' skin to make them appear sweaty. By removing the glycerin she was able to continue working with the cats.[38][39]