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There are few directors, living or dead, that are more iconic than Sir Ridley Scott. The late Stanely Kubrick, however, might be one of them.
During his recent press tour for Napoleon — which has been absolutely sublime, by the way, thanks to Ridley saying things like “the French don’t even like themselves” — Scott told an incredible story of how the famed “chestburster” scene in the original Alien blew Kubrick’s mind so much that he had to call Scott to find out how he pulled it off.
“Stanley Kubrick called me the week Alien opened. He said: ‘It’s Stanley Kubrick.’ I said: ‘F— off!’ He said ‘No, it’s Stanley Kubrick,’ Scott told The Sunday Times in a recent interview.
“He said, ‘I watched Alien, how did you bring the creature out the guy’s chest?’”
The “chestburster” scene — which sees an alien that was growing inside of John Hurt’s character violently burst out of his chest — went on to become one of the defining images of not just Scott’s illustrious career but of modern cinema, in general.
As legend has it, the actors surrounding Hurt weren’t aware of how exactly the moment would play out, meaning their reactions were largely genuine.
Alien was released in 1979, which means that Kubrick phoned Scott when he was likely in the midst of pre-production on his 1980 classic The Shining.
Somewhat amazingly, despite the fact that Alien is considered to be a classic, its James Cameron-directed sequel Aliens is widely considered to be an improvement on the original.
Just a few years after the release of Alien, Scott would direct yet another defining work, as the 1982 film Blade Runner is also considered to be one of the most influential movies ever made.
Both films would go on to spawn sequels: there have now been eight Alien-related movies (with more on the way), while Blade Runner got a sequel titled Blade Runner 2049 in 2017.