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The actor often joked about how frequently he was killed off during his long career onscreen.
For John Hurt, dying was a great living.
Credit: 20th Century Fox
Hurts character, Kane, an officer aboard the interstellar vesselNostromo, makes an early departure from the film.
Its hard to shake ever.
There was something Freudian about it, a psycho-sexual nightmare bathed in imagery of death that also mimicked birth.
The moment arrives just as our guard is down.
Kane is yucking it up with his crewmates over dinner after the apparent danger has passed.
Then he chokes on his meal, sputtering his drink.
Its the kind of thing that makes you slap the back of a fellow diner.
But this isnt a problem the Heimlich Maneuver can fix.
The thing lodged inside him is coming out, but its cutting its own exit.
There was a lot of writhing around, Hurt recalled at theBradford International Film Festival in 2010.
But then, right towards the end, theres a cut to someone, and thats the changing point.
When you come back, you only see the top half of me.
Soon Kane is sprawling across the dining table, thrashing like a live-wire.
He unleashes a single shriek as a geyser of blood jets out of his sternum.
The myth said they didnt know what was going to happen.
Well, of course they knew what was going to happen because they read the script, Hurt said.
But they didnt knowhowit was going to happen.
Hurt was the only actor in the film fully aware of what would happen during that sequence.
Gigers chest-bursting baby alien prepped for launch within.
expression they share it wasnt acting as much as re-acting.
(Except for the camera crew.
They were prepared, and their plastic-wrapped gear might have provided a hint of what was coming.)
Or as Hurt put it: They should have guessedsomethingwas going to happen.
After one take when the alien didnt puncture the shirt, a false sense of security took hold.
Hurt remembered the process as less than terrifying, which also lulled the other actors.
The actual burst-through was on the end of a stick.
One prop man under the table was pushing, Is it coming through yet, Alf?
No, Eric, I cant see nothing!
Hold on, Alf … is it coming through yet?
Yeah, thats more like it!
Push it a bit harder!
The little creature ripped through in a shower of horror as Hurt twitched slightly.
(That made the final cut for sure.)
It was real, man.
We didnt see that coming, costar Yaphet Kotto toldEmpiremagazine in 2009.
The actors were all frightened.
And Veronica nutted out.
No one has recovered from that thing.
Even Oscar took notice.Alienwon the Academy Award for best visual effects, its only trophy.
His character inAlienwas short-lived, but thanks to that unforgettable death he remains immortal.
