Stuart was the Queen Alien in James Cameron’s award-winning movie Aliens.
Stan Winston created the Queen Alien around Stuart St Paul‘s body, and after months of design, testing, and building, Stuart worked one to one with James Cameron as Aliens was made. Cameron had a communication to Stuart who was inside the Queen Alien from morning to night. Stuart could neither see nor hear anything once locked inside.
Stuart was the Queen Alien, the most frightening movie character of all time and working with Cameron so closely was a masterclass. He went on to join Cameron as one of the few directors to win ‘Best Director’ himself and he has continued to win awards around the globe. Recently when on a lecture tour, he was presented with a picture draw especially for him by Lynsey Hutchinson.
Originally six of the smallest stuntmen were auditioned. Stuart Fell, Tip Tipping, Malcolm Weaver, and Stuart St Paul were the final four. Whilst the idea was to have teams, Cameron liked the performance to St Paul and Weaver and insisted that they only would be the two sides of the monster and they went to work with him and the animatronics team which included Steve Norrington, later to work with St Paul at Fugitive and go on to direct Blade. St Paul was against Norrington many years later when they were both finalists at the Porto Film Festival Fantasporto. St Paul can’t remember what film it was of his that was, but he remembers winning the Jury Prize and Steve won Best Director.
The movie was shot at Pinewood Studios, and most of the Queen Alien work was in D-stage which was where he had shot his iconic Carling Black Label Surfer Commercial some years earlier. For months he was the left side of the Queen, and Malcolm was the right side, the two strapped back to back, morning until late into the night. Luckily neither of them lived far from the studio. With the months they spent together, encased in the body waiting for things to happen, they talk about opening a stunt workshop and eventually rented shed 4 on the back lot of the studios. In those days it still resembled a post WWII camp of sheds. They started the company STUNT PRO which also included Bob Harman and Steve Crawley and between them they did many of the great movies of the eighties and nineties – Batman to Superman and beyond.
Many people claim to have been in legendary movies, but I have a folder of contracts for being the Queen Alien the test period and the movie. If you have never seen an Aliens contract, there is one in the title of this post.
Stuart has now jumped from screenplays to novel writing in his ‘retirement’ and become a crime thriller writer. The new 2nd draft of CRUISE SHIP HEIST (26-08-23) which is the first book in his CSCI, Cruise Ship Crime Investigators series, has now picked up an official rave 5* review on the huge American onlinebookclub.org, where it has also achieved a ‘Book of the Day’ (29-08-2023). The series of six cruise mystery thrillers are written in the cruise lounge while at sea, and he never minds being interrupted for a chat.
Stuart has appeared as himself on endless TV shows, from Too Much TV, interviewed by Emma Bunting, to the many behind-the-scenes extras for Emmerdale and Coronation Street. Yes, the only other man to have ever been Mrs Brown, and there are stories there too, has worn a dress a few times, including for Disney! Any guess which movie it is from? He sometimes tells the story on stage as he dressed like that to jump off the Statue of Liberty!
You may have watched the odd television show or film, and sometimes wondered how they did something weird or wonderful.
