Charlie Holloway

"Um, Miss Vickers, is there an agenda that you're not telling us about?"

―Holloway (from Prometheus)

Doctor Charles "Charlie" Holloway^[1] was an archaeologist who was assigned to assist the USCSS Prometheus expedition in discovering the homeworld of the Engineers on LV-223. He has a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Shaw.

Biography[]

Earth[]

Born on Earth in 2058, Charles Holloway did two tours prior to the Prometheus mission, one on Mars and on Earth.^[4] Eventually, he becomes part of an archaeological dig where evidence of alien life is discovered.

Mission aboard the Prometheus[]

A skeptic and adventurous archeologist. Holloway's lover and colleague Elizabeth Shaw showed the most religious zeal out of the Prometheus' crew, but he remained always the more objective of the two.

Pathogenic mutation[]

Over the course of the expedition, Holloway is infected with the Engineer black liquid by David. The infection at first very slowly mutates him and no symptoms are present. Holloway eventually has sex with Shaw and unknowingly impregnates her with an alien monster. After sleeping with Shaw, he begins to feel a fever and also notices a very small organism in one of his eyes.

Later, the infection spread more and caused him an even more severe feverish state and intense pain afterwards. Other symptoms then start to show, such as bloodshot eyes, very visible dark veins, rapidly deteriorating skin tissue and a very pale, almost livid skin color.

To save the life of his beloved Elizabeth and to stop his pain, Holloway is burned alive at his own request by a reluctant Vickers, who refused to let him back on board since he could contaminate and infect other crewmen.

Legacy[]

Sometime after his and Shaw's supposed 'disappearance' with the presumed loss of the Prometheus expedition, Holloway's and Shaw's academic findings pertaining to alien life supposedly having influenced human development was removed from publication.^[5]

Trivia[]

In Jon Spaihts' original script for Prometheus, titled Alien: Engineers, Holloway's first name is Martin. In the script, Holloway is impregnated by an Octo-Facehugger that comes from an egg in the ceiling of a chamber inside the Engineer facility on LV-426, and is later killed by the Beluga-Xenomorph Chestburster that erupts from him.^[6]
For Noomi Rapace's Prometheus screen test, Holloway was played by actor Rafe Spall, who plays Millburn in the finished film. In the test, the actors performed the scene where Shaw argues with a drunk Holloway after they have discovered all the Engineers are dead.
A NECA figure of an infected Holloway was planned for release, but due to low sales of Prometheus related merchandise, the figure was ultimately cancelled.