Warning: Major spoilers for Na Hong-jin’s HOPE (2026) below.
If you watched HOPE and wondered where Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander were, you may have been looking for familiar human faces.
But they are not playing ordinary human characters.
They are playing two of the aliens at the center of HOPE’s much larger story.
Michael Fassbender plays Ma’veyyo.
Alicia Vikander plays J’aur.
And although their recognizable faces are largely hidden behind the film’s CGI creatures, these are not simple celebrity cameos.
Director Na Hong-jin has made it clear that the alien characters have a much bigger backstory — and Fassbender and Vikander could become especially important if the HOPE story continues.
The Short Answer
Here are the key alien roles in HOPE:
- Michael Fassbender — Ma’veyyo
- Alicia Vikander — J’aur
- Taylor Russell — Ai’dovor
- Cameron Britton — Va’migere
These performers helped bring the extraterrestrial characters to life through performance work that was transformed into the creatures we see on screen.
That is why viewers expecting a conventional Michael Fassbender or Alicia Vikander appearance may initially be confused.
The actors are there.
You just may not recognize them.
Who Is Ma’veyyo?
Ma’veyyo is the alien played by Michael Fassbender.
He emerges as one of the most important extraterrestrial characters in the latter part of the film.
Director Na Hong-jin has described Ma’veyyo as an alien leader.
The character can appear as a bipedal creature but can also shift into a four-legged form during the film’s intense pursuit sequences.
But Ma’veyyo becomes particularly important near the ending.
His story becomes connected to Kali, the alien child whose body has been kept in Yang-bae’s freezer.
When the possibility of saving Kali emerges, Ma’veyyo is prepared to make an extraordinary sacrifice.
He removes his own heart as part of an attempt to change the child’s fate.
That moment makes it clear that Ma’veyyo is much more than the frightening creature the humans initially believe him to be.
Who Is J’aur?
J’aur is played by Alicia Vikander.
Like Ma’veyyo, J’aur belongs to the alien group whose story becomes increasingly important as HOPE moves away from the humans’ limited perspective.
J’aur participates in the final alien conversation surrounding Kali and what should happen next.
And that conversation is one of the moments when the audience finally begins to understand these beings as characters rather than monsters.
They communicate.
They experience loss.
They have relationships and responsibilities.
They make decisions.
Most importantly, they have a history that existed long before the humans of Hope Harbor encountered them.
Are Fassbender and Vikander Actually Inside the CGI Aliens?
Yes — in the sense that their performances form the basis of the characters.
Na Hong-jin used performance-capture techniques for the alien roles.
The actors’ physical performances were then transformed into the extraterrestrial creatures seen in the finished movie.
Na has explained that the actors even influenced the creatures’ appearances.
Their faces were scanned as part of the production process.
So although viewers do not simply see “Michael Fassbender wearing an alien costume,” the performance underneath the digital creature belongs to Fassbender.
The same applies to Vikander and the other international actors playing aliens.
Why Cast Famous Hollywood Actors If We Can’t See Their Faces?
Because Na Hong-jin was thinking beyond the first movie.
This may be one of the most interesting production details behind HOPE.
Na has said that when he cast the alien characters, he already had a larger story in mind.
That meant these roles could not simply be anonymous creatures.
He needed actors capable of carrying emotion through an unfamiliar body and an invented language.
The aliens have lives, relationships, a hierarchy and a mission.
Much of that backstory is not fully shown in the first movie.
But it exists behind the characters.
That is a major clue about where the HOPE universe may be going.
Why Do the Aliens Speak Their Own Language?
Because Na Hong-jin wanted them to feel like members of an actual civilization rather than generic movie monsters.
The production created an invented alien language for the characters.
The actors had to learn their dialogue in that language before filming.
Na has said that the sounds and pronunciation were difficult enough that he felt non-Korean actors might be particularly suited to performing it.
This decision becomes especially important near the end.
For most of the film, the humans — and therefore the audience — cannot properly understand the aliens.
That makes them frightening.
But once their conversations become understandable to us, our perception changes.
The monsters become characters.
Why Are Ma’veyyo and J’aur So Important?
Because HOPE eventually changes perspective.
At the beginning, the movie belongs primarily to the humans.
Bum-seok, Sung-ae, Sung-ki and the residents of Hope Harbor encounter something terrifying that they do not understand.
Naturally, we experience the aliens as monsters.
But Na Hong-jin gradually shifts the story.
By the final section, we begin seeing events from the extraterrestrials’ point of view.
Ma’veyyo and J’aur are crucial to that reversal.
Once we understand their conversations and motivations, the simple division between “human victims” and “alien villains” starts to collapse.
Are Ma’veyyo and J’aur Kali’s Parents?
This is one area where viewers should be careful.
Some online explanations have interpreted Ma’veyyo and J’aur as Kali’s parents.
Others connect Kali more directly to the larger alien hierarchy and the emperor.
But the first film does not explain the exact family relationship clearly enough to make every version of that claim definitive.
What the movie does establish is that Kali is extremely important to the aliens and that Ma’veyyo is willing to make an extraordinary sacrifice in an attempt to save the child.
Until the larger alien backstory is revealed, it is better not to turn interpretation into confirmed fact.
Who Are Ai’dovor and Va’migere?
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander are not the only international stars hidden inside HOPE’s creatures.
Taylor Russell plays Ai’dovor.
Cameron Britton plays Va’migere.
Together with Ma’veyyo and J’aur, they help establish that the extraterrestrials are not one interchangeable species of monsters.
They are individuals.
And according to Na Hong-jin, these characters exist within a larger hierarchy and have missions of their own.
The first movie only gives us part of that story.
Why Do the Aliens Look So Different?
The creatures were deliberately designed to feel unfamiliar.
Na Hong-jin has explained that the production initially considered more realistic creature designs before moving toward something more unusual.
The filmmakers wanted to avoid simply copying familiar American science-fiction monsters.
Their design therefore became more stylized and distinctive.
There is also a narrative reason the creatures feel complicated.
They have their own backstory, hierarchy and mission.
The audience simply does not know most of it yet.
That makes their strange appearances part of the mystery rather than just visual spectacle.
Will Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander Be in HOPE 2?
This is where things get especially interesting.
Na Hong-jin has already written a sequel story.
That does not mean HOPE 2 is guaranteed to be produced.
But the director has said that if the sequel happens, it would focus much more heavily on the alien characters played by Fassbender and Vikander.
Another interview described the proposed continuation as moving into space and centering more directly on their characters.
That means Ma’veyyo and J’aur may ultimately be far more important than their screen time in the first HOPE suggests.
The first film may effectively be introducing them before their real story begins.
The First Movie May Be the Human Side of a Much Bigger Story
This possibility changes how we can interpret HOPE.
The first movie largely shows what happens when humans encounter something they cannot understand.
The villagers see monsters.
They react with fear.
Violence follows.
Only near the end do we begin to understand that the aliens have their own story.
Their civilization existed before Hope Harbor.
Their relationships existed before Hope Harbor.
Their mission existed before Hope Harbor.
And the conflict we have just watched may be only one tiny event inside something much larger.
That is why casting actors such as Fassbender and Vikander suddenly makes much more sense.
Na Hong-jin was not merely casting monsters.
He was casting characters for a potentially much bigger universe.
Why Fassbender Is an Interesting Choice
There is also an amusing science-fiction connection.
Michael Fassbender is already strongly associated with extraterrestrial cinema through Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, where he played the androids David and Walter.
In HOPE, however, the relationship is reversed.
He is no longer the human-made artificial being confronting alien life.
Now he is literally playing the alien.
And this time, humanity may be the frightening species from his character’s perspective.
Why Alicia Vikander Is an Interesting Choice
Vikander also has a famous science-fiction role in her past.
In Ex Machina, she played Ava, an artificial intelligence whose humanity — or apparent humanity — becomes central to the film.
HOPE again places Vikander inside a character that challenges the boundary between “human” and “other.”
But J’aur is not simply a machine that looks human.
She belongs to an extraterrestrial civilization that humans initially cannot understand at all.
The visual transformation is much more extreme.
Yet the emotional question is similar:
Can audiences empathize with a being that does not look like them?
Why These Characters Matter to HOPE’s Main Theme
The most important trick in HOPE is perspective.
When we follow humans, the aliens are terrifying.
When we begin following the aliens, the humans start looking different too.
Ma’veyyo and J’aur help make that transition possible.
Their performances give emotion and personality to creatures that could easily have remained anonymous CGI monsters.
And once the audience begins understanding them, the moral structure of the film becomes much less comfortable.
Maybe the question is not:
“Why are these monsters attacking humans?”
Maybe the question is:
“What do humans look like from the other side?”
Final Takeaway
So, who do Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander play in HOPE?
Michael Fassbender plays Ma’veyyo, one of the film’s key alien characters and a leader among the extraterrestrials.
Alicia Vikander plays J’aur, another important member of the alien group.
Taylor Russell plays Ai’dovor, while Cameron Britton plays Va’migere.
These are not meaningless celebrity cameos hidden under CGI.
Na Hong-jin created an alien civilization with its own language, hierarchy, history and mission.
And he cast these actors knowing that the extraterrestrial side of the story could become much more important later.
That may be the biggest clue of all.
HOPE begins as a movie about humans encountering aliens.
But if Na Hong-jin gets to continue the story, the next chapter may increasingly become a movie about aliens encountering us.