Interview: Eric McCormack talks about being from another world in his new movie: “Alien Trespass”

And they said he’d never be able to leave Will Truman behind.

In his new movie, Alien Trespass, former Will & Grace star Eric McCormack plays it straight in two roles: bland local astronomer Ted Lewis and a benevolent space alien named Urp.  Things get wild when inhabits Ted’s body for awhile to try and stop a murderous one-eyed creature – the Ghota – that is determined to destroy all life forms on  planet Earth.

“Ted was a lot of fun,” said the Emmy winning actor. “I think the fun was that Ted is extremely stiff and dull and it took having an alien inside of him to open him up.”

The movie, which opens on Friday,. is an homage to the sci-fi flicks of the 50s. To ensure accuracy, director R.W. Goodwin insisted on only using technology that was available then for the 15-day shoot. Eric, whose TNT series Trust Me is probably headed for cancellation, talked about the movie earlier this week at the Four Seasons in LA.

I asked Eric what appealed to him about the role – it is so different from anything he’s ever done.

“It was ridiculously fun,” he said. “I’m also looking for any reason to work in Vancouver which I love and I live part-time. I loved Bob Goodwin’s enthusiasm. But I’ll be honest, I did it with no expectations of it being seen by anyone. I said to him flat-out: ‘I love the script. I have no idea who it’s for.’ I don’t know who’s supposed to show up. People who are old enough to remember the 50s generally don’t come on opening weekend. As it turns out, weirdly, it seems to appealing to a lot of groups. Kids are digging it and film people are liking it because it’s an accurate representation – a loving, not mocking representation of (the genre), and sci-fi people are loving it because it’s such a tribute to where it all comes from.”

The film is silly fun but Eric was serious with his preparation for it. Most of his scenes- at least when Urp is in Ted’s body -are with Australian actress Jenni Baird who plays a local waitress in their small town and helps to subdue the monster.

“Because I was an alien in another person’s body, I (thought) should drive that body the way an alien would drive a stolen car so that was the fun of the walk and the talk and the hands and discovering,” Eric explained. “And the most fun is whenever my character is around her character, he keeps getting a hard-on which he calls pularity. Those are funny moments.”

So there are funny moments. But is anybody really going to be scared?

Said Eric: “I took my son to the opening in Palm Springs and he’s six. He’s seen every Star Wars and even seen Independence Day and he’s pretty savvy the way kids are these days. But the Ghota scared him – the guy in the rubber suit who on purpose looks kinda bad. We look and go, ‘That’s hilarious’ because it is accurately bad. But my son was terrified of it and terrified of the idea that it could reduce (people) to puddles of water.”

Eric is rooting for the movie – set in 1957 – because it takes audiences back to simpler times: “Everything is happening so fast, there is no more innocence in science. The things we dream today will be real in a year so the kind of things that led to space and imagining being on the moon, that’s kind of gone now and it’s very hard in that genre to get back to that.”

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