New Falling Skies Pics

Noah Wyle talks Falling Skies season three – and looks handy with a variety of guns.

In the new season of the Steven Spielberg-produced alien invasion drama Falling Skies , unlikely hero Tom Mason (Noah Wyle, pictured) finds himself reluctantly accepting the Presidency of what's left of the United States – and working alongside the Volm, aliens who've shown up to help Earth's fight against the extraterrestrial Skitters, Mechs and Overlords who've done their best to wipe humanity out.

“This alliance with the Volm has been very successful , and you can’t argue with results,” Wyle tells SFX . “And if the people need to feel that there’s a President in order to feel a sense of normalcy and calm, then Tom’s willing to play that part. That’s all it really is at this stage. But on his arc, to becoming a good leader, it’s an important step to start him off in a suit that doesn’t quite fit, and that he gradually grows into it as the season unfolds.”

He does have a Volm sidekick to help him out – Cochise, played by Doug Jones ( Hellboy 's Abe Sapien). “At first,” Wyle explains, “there was the idea there was gonna be a green screen – I would be acting with a tennis ball on a stick. Then they said. ‘We’ll get an actor. We’ll get somebody who wears the suit, so you’ll have somebody to react off of.’ Then we had the greatest fortune of all to cast Doug Jones in that part… He brings such a depth of character to what could have ostensibly been a rubber suit and a mask. It very quickly helped me bridge the gap and reason between the logic of the situation – which is to be inherently distrustful of anything that comes from outer space at this point – and the fact that this is an alliance that needed to be brokered.”

Season three of Falling Skies comes to UK screens on Fox from Tuesday 16 July. You can read more about the new series in the new issue of SFX , on sale from Wednesday 26 June.