One of 'Aliens' Best Lines Was Improvised [Exclusive]

Aliens might be full of explosive action, xenomorph terror — and also a cat because Jonesy is still in this one, too — but it’s also full of a surprising amount of banter. That’s all down to the Colonial Marines, who definitely don’t sound like polished movie characters; they sound like people who have spent way too long together. According to one of its stars, the reason it worked so well came from a careful mix of James Cameron‘s script and the cast being allowed to play around when the moment called for it.

Speaking during a Big Lick Comic Con NOVA panel moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, Ricco Ross, who played Private Frost in Aliens, was asked how much of the movie’s famously sharp dialogue was improvised. Ross said it wasn’t as simple as the cast just making everything up on the fly. The reason it works so well is that, although the Marines have so much tech, they’re clearly just a ragtag bunch of normal folks who happen to be hunting down aliens.

“It was a little of both,” said Ross, when asked about how much of the movie was scripted vs. natural conversation. “Well, actually, it was mostly scripted, and a little ad lib. Most of the ad lib, I think, took place maybe at the breakfast table when they do the knife thing, because James will give you just enough rope to hang yourself, and if it worked, he would keep it in.”

James Cameron Let ‘Aliens’ Stars Try Things

Ross went on to share how one of his own improvised lines made it into the film. The moment came during the hypersleep sequence, when the physical reality of the setup gave him a reaction that it would be almost impossible to fake. “We’re lying in the hyper chamber, and they’re setting up a mirror so it can look like [there’s] twice as many hyperchambers than they had. And they’re standing it up, and they have to be perfect for the camera, and right where the mirrors meet, they hung a chain, and they had to be perfectly set there,” Ross explained. “And I’m lying in this damn hyper chamber thing at 6′ 3″, thinking ‘I hate this job,’ so I get out when this film starts rolling, when he’s shooting the scene, and I decided to utter those words, and after the take, he goes, ‘Keep it in.’”

From there, the line stayed. Ross said Cameron liked the moment enough that he had him repeat it in later takes, while also allowing the cast to riff during the table scene as long as the material actually helped the movie. Ross continued:

“Every take after that, I would keep it in, because he liked lines. At the table, when we were at the breakfast table, people were throwing in lines and just playing with things, and James was cool with that, if it worked. If it didn’t work, he would tell you, or it would hit the editing table, and you would never see it.”

Ross also pointed to one of the movie’s more memorably weird pieces of Marine banter, the Arcturian line, as an example of the cast riffing in the moment. “I think there was one line, somebody asked me to sign it today, about the Arcturian poontang,” Ross laughed. “I can’t remember the line about the Arcturian poontang, but I know, was it you? […] I know Danny said something [like] ‘Yeah, but yours was a male, Frost.’ And he just threw that line at me, right? So, I replied back, ‘Hey, baby, it don’t mind when it’s Arcturian.’ I don’t even know what Arcturians looked like,” laughed Ross. “We were just riffing.”

Aliens is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu. Stay tuned for more at Collider.