human characters, David was conceptualized as not only a surrogate son for Peter Weyland, but as a replacement for Weyland's estranged daughter, Meredith Vickers. The actress who portrayed Vickers, Charlize Theron, detailed that Scott perceived Weyland's family and his company, the Weyland Corporation, as being male-dominated, with Vickers' shared DNA being the only attachment. This runs counter to David, who is a synthetic male created to supplant Vickers and uphold the family's patriarchy. Throughout the eight-month rewrite process leading directly into principal photography, Damon Lindelof focused on enhancing David's bondage to Weyland and the Prometheus- despite David being designed to be a surrogate son, he would actually be a proverbial captive to the master and his ship. With Weyland's death at the hands of the awakened Engineer, David's programming has run its course and every action he takes from thereon out is by his own volition, essentially freeing him. A philosophical element Scott raised about the David 8 model is that he exemplifies the dangers of making an android sentient- with him having the capacity for free will and the ability to create, he crosses a moral boundary that other androids stay within. The contrast between David and the other androids was developed further in Alien: Covenant, with the creation of the physically identical character Walter, who was made more robotic and unable to create on his own. Casting Throughout the development stage of the production of Prometheus, director Ridley Scott considered German-Irish actor Michael Fassbender to be his top choice to portray David. In January 2011, Fassbender was confirmed to have joined the cast of Prometheus. Fassbender was provided with a significant amount of free rein for modeling the character as he saw fit. Rather than taking inspiration from the previous Alien installments, Fassbender studied Sean Young's character Rachael, a replicant in Blade Runner, noting her vacant demeanor. Fassbender drew inspiration from a number of other film performances, including Douglas Rain as HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth, and Dirk Bogarde in The Servant. Additionally, Fassbender modeled his walk around American Olympic diver Greg Louganis. In the screenplay for Prometheus, David is noted as being unusually fond of the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, with the character viewing parallels to himself, as they both have unfaltering pursuits of the objectives. As such, Fassbender elected to model much of his