Eve Hewson on aliens, Hollywood and her dad Bono
As questions go, it’s surprisingly simple. Just six words: Are we alone in the universe? This existential questioning is as old as the human ability to look at the stars with wonder and wonder. It fuels conspiracy theories. And here and now, this is a point-by-point and unexpected media bone thrown into the international debate by the US government.
Actress Eve Hewson, who stars in the new alien conspiracy thriller, says she herself is the answer. Disclosure DayIt lies deep within a series of questions we persistently ask ourselves about the nature of our existence. “Who are we? What is our purpose? The meaning of life, why do we exist and why are we here on Earth?” he says. “So if we are on Earth and there is life in another universe or on another planet, what does that mean?”
The more pressing point, Hewson adds, is not whether there is an answer, but what it means for us. “What do we need to do with this information? Where do we need to go? Do we need to communicate with this other life? I understand why this is so fascinating to people because we don’t have the answers. And that’s why people are so interested in so many theories about it.”
The annals of science fiction cinema history offer chapter and verse on stories of extraterrestrial life. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) remains an all-time classic about an alien named Klaatu whose arrival forces Earth’s governments to accept the reality of intelligent alien life. to contact (1997) and Arrival (2016) consider different sides of the coin: in the first, a confirmed radio signal from space, in the second, the arrival of mysterious alien capsules.
However, we see this problem addressed in various ways in the works of writer, director and producer Steven Spielberg. Inside Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) explores this question by setting a monumental first contact encounter between scientists and a massive alien mothership. And in Extraterrestrial ET (1982) is based on the friendship between a stranded alien and a human child.
Inside Disclosure DaySpielberg uses the intended revelation of a translated alien message as the film’s starting point. When Kansas City meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) suddenly begins speaking in a foreign language, truth seeker Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) realizes he knows what it means, and Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head of a shadowy black ops organization called Wardex, sets out to stop her. Hewson plays Kellner’s girlfriend, Jane Blankenship.
In what feels like a scene from his own spy thriller, Hewson was given a physical script when he was offered the role. He had to sign it, read it, and return it when he was done. This might not seem so unusual, except that by 2026, nearly all scripts in film and television will be delivered digitally.
“It’s actually pretty scary,” Hewson says with a laugh. “And that’s a huge responsibility. The only other director I’ve ever heard of doing that is Christopher Nolan. But there’s something so lovely and exciting and exciting about getting your hands on a script. It really makes you feel like you’re living in Hollywood. I love scripts; I love leafing through them and writing my notes on them.”
The 34-year-old actor is perhaps best known in Australia for his work in TV series. Evil Sisters, Behind Your Eyes And Perfect CoupleHe says he immediately connected with David Koepp’s script. “That’s the great thing about the script, it’s really about real people caught up in this extraordinary experience. What David does so cleverly is he really engages the audience, as if you’re living in it.” [The idea that] This can easily happen to you.
“I thought I was going to die on page two,” Hewson adds with a laugh. “Sitting down to read the script was the most extraordinary experience in an actor’s life. And learning that I’m not just a cameo. It’s about humanity. It’s about empathy. It’s also a full-on action-packed chase. So you jump right into this story and then you go on this journey.”
An interesting thing about the movie is the way it interacts with real-world headlines. We live in an age where alien encounters have moved from the cobwebs of the internet to the evening news. The US government recently confirmed that military personnel periodically encounter unexplained Unidentified Anomalous Events (UAP). But key agencies of the U.S. government—the Pentagon, NASA, and intelligence agencies—have never confirmed the existence of evidence of extraterrestrial life, alien bodies, or recovered spacecraft.
“People can’t find the facts, and that’s probably why there’s a hunger for a more concrete answer on the subject,” says Hewson. “We live in a post-truth society and people want to know more about the world. We also live in a conspiracy theory society and people are fascinated by that [by questions like this]. Nobody knows what’s real anymore. You can’t even look at your phone without questioning whether the news you read is true or not. This admiration comes from here. It’s about truth.”
Born in Dublin, Hewson is the second of four children of activist and businesswoman Alison Hewson and U2 frontman Paul Hewson, better known by his stage name Bono. Although it was clear he was always destined to be an actor—he studied at both the New York Film Academy and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts—his side studies at the latter included psychology, which he describes as a useful piece in the actor’s toolbox. “Studying psychology made sense to me and was very helpful in understanding the human psyche and understanding why people do what they do,” he says.
“What I love about acting is that there’s no end to it. You’re constantly learning more about people every day, and you bring that to your acting and you can grow and develop as an actor. It never ends. I’m fascinated by people and human behavior. And with every job I take, I learn a little more about our species and why we are the way we are.”
Good news? Hewson says we’re not as predictable as we think. “That’s what’s interesting: everyone is different, and we’re not just textbook. Yes, there are some things that are predictable, but… there’s something new to discover in every character I play.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given who his father is, he has another tool in his toolbox: musicality. “Whenever I approach a character, the first thing I always think about is what the character sounds like,” Hewson says. “Polish is really important to me and really exciting. There’s a musicality to the way someone talks that can get into my head. Sometimes I’ll do a scene and I’ll listen to a song and it’ll explain the scene to me in a weird way.”
“It’s an emotional connection that gets me in that mood. I think a lot of other actors do that too… I don’t make a playlist – like, this is what the character is going to listen to – it’s more of an energy. A song gives me a certain energy for a scene and it plays on a loop in my head during that scene.”
Growing up with a famous father meant that Hewson understood from childhood that fame was an intangible external force that periodically interacted with family life. At the same time, he approaches his own acting career with the feeling that the woman on the billboard or the movie poster is not the same woman he sees in the mirror.
“I always like to feel like it’s a character and not you,” Hewson says. “But the crazy thing about acting is that you do something, you play a character very intensely, as best you can for a short period of time, and then a year later [while marketing the project] you have to go back and relive who that person was and who you were in creating that person.
“So it feels like they’re characters, but they’re also time capsules of who I am at that moment, you know what I mean? It’s like a flashback to a certain time in your life. It’s kind of nice. There’s something nostalgic about it. I always look back with so much love and pride for facing my fears and doing that. I’m so proud of myself for going for it.”
Hewson is also much more comfortable with the idea of his own fame. “Making a career in Hollywood is like having a really bad boyfriend: You love him so much, but he totally cheats on you,” she famously said in 2020. He has since moved back to Dublin and created a clearer boundary between his real life and his day job.
So what will this relationship be like in 2026? “It definitely takes a lot of effort, but I get so much more out of it,” Hewson says with a laugh. “I think we’re in a healthier place. We went to couples therapy, that’s for sure.”
Disclosure Day It opens on June 11.
