How do you view Alex’s journey from the pilot to now? In what ways has he grown?
Cas Anvar: He’s grown a lot. I would hazard to try and compare him to other characters, but he’s grown a lot. I think he started in the most normal place, and he’s had to process some of the most insane and magnificent things to just accept them as reality. It’s put a real strain on his understanding of the world, and it’s put a strain on his personal life. He’s had to go from a loner to a family man and create this new family, and he’s had to grow up as a man.
When he was in the Academy on Mars, he’d always dreamed about being a pilot, but he had never been seen as that. They always told him, “You don’t have what it takes to be a pilot of one of these gunships.” And so, he ended up being basically a glorified bus driver. He was a transport pilot; he got to ship cargo and never saw combat or went on any crazy missions. But he was honorably discharged; he served his 20 years.
He was a proud Martian military guy, and he was a family man. But he was just unsettled and unhappy and unfulfilled, and everything in his mind was just kind of mediocre. He was mediocre at everything: being a Martian, a Navy man, a husband and a father. And it was because he had never really pursued his dream. He always wanted to fly.
And at the beginning of Season 1, circumstances of the universe thrust them all into the fire. And he’s forced through no choice of his own to rise up to the occasion and become what he was always meant to be, or else everyone’s going to die. That is kind of a miraculous birth for him. He really got born in the first four episodes of Season 1.
Then as he grows and realizes he really did have what it takes, he’s faced with all these huge new challenges and obstacles at a completely different level. And he’s faced with responsibilities that he never dreamed would be on his shoulder, and he’s got to rise up to those occasions. In some cases, he fails. He failed hard in Season 1 and 2, and it scars his soul and changes him as a man. It changes him into the man that we see in Season 4, where the whole team has hardened and kind of come together. We’re now fighting force; we really kind of fit in our skins now.
Are there any tensions developing among the team thanks to their difficult situation, such as between Alex and Holden?
Cas Anvar: There’s definitely new pressures and new challenges that happen. In Season 4 every one of us gets put into completely unfamiliar territory. And some of us ask for help, but some of us don’t, and that that causes obstacles and problems throughout the season. There will be some friction between the characters as a result of the fact that they’re in new territory and they don’t know how to navigate it.
What’s the biggest challenge for Alex over the course of the new season?
Cas Anvar: In Season 4, Alex really kind of puts himself in the position to be there for the rest of the team. He’s really there to support his teammates because of what they’re going through. And as a result of him being in this kind of very supportive role, he ends up kind of waking up some things inside himself. Unresolved things that he thought were resolved with regards to his history and his past. He starts witnessing things and seeing things happening with other people, which makes him realize that maybe he still has some things left to do that he thought were done.
