Drew Roy

“Any scene in which you see anybody sweating is for real,” explains 25-year-old Drew Roy, whose latest claim to fame is his role in the sci-fi series Falling Skies, produced by Steven Spielberg. The show follows a group of humans fighting for survival after an alien invasion, and Roy (who plays Hal Mason, a fearless scout for the human resistance) is keen to make the scenes in which he is physically exhausted as realistic as possible. “We were shooting in Toronto in the summer and it was ridiculously hot and we were all dressed like it was fall. So we had three layers on, a jacket, and were running for our lives. Noah [Wyle, who plays his on-screen father Tom] laughs at me because I do a couple of laps before I jump into a scene to get me out of breath. I love the physical aspect of it.”
Although the sweat and exhaustion of the alien invasion show are real, the killer robots and demonic extra terrestrials thankfully are not. “It’s CGI,” Roy assures, “so mostly it’s me hiding down behind a burnt-out car looking at a guy holding a long metal rod with a spear on top and I have to look really terrified.”
Having moved from his home in Alabama to find a faster life in Atlanta, Roy came into acting apparently on a whim after taking some out-of-the-blue advice from an LA-based talent manager to give Hollywood a try. Fate, seemingly, is on his side: in the seven years since his arrival in Los Angeles, Roy has already worked with Miley Cyrus, in the astronomically successful Hannah Montana (playing Miley’s on-screen boyfriend, Jesse), and has done a great job of chatting up Spielberg himself, on the set of Falling Skies. “It was a surreal experience,” he says of the moment the director came over to strike up conversation, “we talked about this and that and the dirt bike I ride on the show. And then he wanted to talk about Miley because he’d just got into the show – I think with one of his grandchildren – and he’s fascinated by how high pitched little girls can scream when she walks on a stage.”
Would Roy ever want to experience such a level of fame himself?
“Heck no!” he replies, “You can’t make enough money to buy your life back, in my opinion. I look at those Twilight guys and think, ‘I would not want that’. You don’t have your life anymore. I admire the guys who constantly work and if you saw them on the street you might not know their name but you admire their work – that’s what I’d like to do.” If his success so far is any indication, anonymity might not be something Roy can hold on to for too long but he is ready to take whatever the future holds. “I’d say I’m in a good place right now. I get recognised on the streets but it’s like a compliment. I got a long way to go before it becomes a nuisance.”

[Originally published in Wonderland Magazine Issue 28, November 2011. Photography Danielle Levitt]