I
t might be fair to call Sigourney Weaver the unofficial Queen of Sci-Fi Nerdom. The Oscar-winning actor, 76, has had a varied career playing roles ranging from primatologist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist to Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. For viewers of a certain age and those in rabid fan bases, however, Weaver is the icon who’s starred in not one, not two, but three blockbuster franchises. She’s Ripley, the tough-as-nails hero of the Alien movies; Dana Barrett, professional cellist and former channeler of the demigod Zuul in the Ghostbusters films; and both xenoanthropologist Grace Augustine and her teenage Na’vi daughter Kiri in James Cameron‘s Avatar series, the latter of which she reprises in Avatar: Fire and Ash, opening Dec. 19.
And just when you thought she couldn’t achieve a higher rank of sci-fi royalty, Weaver is also about to join the Star Wars universe, playing a rebel leader in next summer’s The Mandalorian and Grogu, a feature-film extension of the popular Disney+ show. “I was at the Star Wars celebration in Tokyo, where you walk out on that stage, and there are thousands of people there with those lightsabers and stuff — my god!” Weaver said during a recent Zoom interview. “I mean, what energy! I’m so proud to be part of the whole sci-fi universe. It’s like we’re our own planet.”
We spoke with Weaver about her experience doing motion-capture scenes, how she freaked out Ivan Reitman during her Ghostbusters audition, why she’s never made it all the way through 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the secret to fixing Congress.
You’ve been part of three major sci-fi/fantasy film franchises in Alien, Ghostbusters, and Avatar, and you’re going to be in the Mandalorian movie coming out in 2026. A lot of people criticize or dismiss these types of movies, but given how popular they are, what itch do you feel like they’re scratching?
Well, I can only speak as someone who was drawn to them in the first place… I have a gut instinct about stories and films that are commercial. I ascribe it to my father, who was a television producer [Pat Weaver]. I want to be in movies people want to see again and again, and that means it has to be a pretty darn good story that will be more than its time and more than the people in it. I really felt that about Alien, even though I knew so little about science fiction. I mean, I’ve never been able to get through 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Wait, really?
I don’t smoke dope. I get about halfway through, and then… that’s it. I’ll try again next year. [Laughs.] But Ghostbusters and Avatar, they were irresistible to me. I became an actor because I love adventure, and I thought this way I can explore all these different worlds, different times, different people, different situations in history. And science fiction, to me, is the history ahead of us. It just hasn’t happened yet.
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And because it’s fantasy, you bring yourself to it as an audience member in a different way. There’s a feeling of possibility. I think that’s really a blessing these days. Some people think science fiction is just special effects. And it’s not. It’s so much more about dreaming about what could happen in another world, in another time.
I mean, of course, we see that some of these big franchises are hit and miss. If you try to pay off a franchise too many times, it stops working. Mandalorian is a good example of staying in the universe but letting these shooting stars go out in these different directions. So I’m delighted to be in The Mandalorian.
Plus you get to hang with Grogu.
I get to hang with a group of Grogus! There’s the Grogu that walks sometimes, and the Grogu that does weird faces, and then there’s another Grogu that does that, whatever it is — the Force?
Yes, it’s called the Force.
And they’re like six people who have to almost travel in a little clump around the main Grogu. I just find it fascinating. I love being behind the scenes for something like that.
You were the second-most famous person on that set after Grogu.
I don’t know, I think Pedro Pascal is probably the most famous now. He’s probably outdone Grogu at this point.
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Alien was the first major film role you had, yet you avoided being pigeonholed in sci-fi. You were able to play Dian Fossey and do films like Working Girl and The Ice Storm.
I do think that there was a real desire to pigeonhole me after Ripley, because I played this strong woman. And that meant it was very hard for people, especially studio people, to imagine that I could be funny. That took a long time. I mean, I was in a comedy with Gregory Hines and Chevy Chase, but it was a mess, and I don’t think there was anything really funny about it. What was the name of it?
Deal of the Century. You survived a William Friedkin production. Congratulations!
Yes, I did! I remember a little old lady coming up to Friedkin as we were filming in Silver Lake, I think, and she said [little old lady voice], “Mr. Frieeeee-dkin, what is this movie about?” And he replied, “My dear, this movie is about me not having had a hit for 10 years.” [Laughs.]
Oh, that’s amazing.
I know. And suddenly, the world I had found myself in made a little more sense. Because Friedkin didn’t seem comfortable. It wasn’t like he’d developed this story. He had just been hired to make it good, and everyone was figuring it out as we went along.
But it wasn’t until I had read Ghostbusters and then got to meet Ivan Reitman that someone in Hollywood realized I could do comedy. I just sincerely wanted them to understand that as an actor, there were no limits to what I could do. I could absolutely play the dog. They just would have to help me somehow with the final things that would make me dog-like [laughs], but I would be able to play the soul of a dog. And so when I read for it, I demonstrated that for Ivan on the couch. It wasn’t like I wasn’t making fun of the movie, you know. I really was trying to be a dog, playing with the cushions and howling and letting my dog self, my freaky dog self, out. And, you know — it frightened him!
I can, um, imagine.
He had taped it, and then he turned the tape off and just looked at me. He said, “Don’t ever do that again. It’s so grotesque, I guarantee you some editor will want to use it.” But then what I didn’t realize was that after I left, Ivan called up Harold Ramis and said, “This Sigourney Weaver just came in and she felt that the character should turn into the dog.” In the original script, you didn’t see Dana turn into the dog. The dog came out of her ice box, but it didn’t go through her. So he had Ramis change the script and they hired me. No one told me that for about 30 years, though.
When you’re working on the Avatar movies with performance-capture stuff and all the bleeding-edge technology that James Cameron uses to make these films, does that change your approach to the work?
You are on an empty stage. You are in a little black leotard. You are wearing a helmet with a camera on it. It feels like a very early theater rehearsal, where you just learn with the other actor who’s also in a black leotard with a helmet. But we are completely free of those other technical hindrances, like hair, makeup, lighting, all of that. We just get to work. We just keep letting the scene develop, and meanwhile, there are a bunch of guys around with video cams picking it up, so that Jim can go through with his magic camera he’s invented and put these different pieces together from any angle. I would say it’s the most freeing way of performing.
It’s the exact opposite of what everyone thinks, which is that we’re burdened by these obligations and have to pretend something is there when you’re just talking to, you know, a potted plant. It’s almost better than regular movie acting, where you have to take so much time and do this side, then this side — there’s none of that there. One of the great joys of playing Kiri was that I could just fill myself up with all of my feelings and sensitivities from that age, and then bring that onstage with me. At this point, all of us who’ve chosen to go on the journey with Jim, when we walk into that empty room, we all feel like we are on Pandora.
And you get to keep going back to this world…
I feel so fortunate to be part of something that’s continuing like this. It’s a little like I felt with Ripley, the opportunity to go back and rediscover someone you left. It’s such an adventure, and such a luxury to be able to understand some things you didn’t understand about them before. But what I really love about working with Jim is you just get to fucking go for it, and he’s gonna get it on film.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
I don’t think I ever got the advice I needed at the time I needed it. For instance, at drama school, they told me I had no talent. I don’t think there really would have been anything people could say to help me get through some of those times. I should have been seeing a shrink. And I did go see a shrink at Yale — I had five sessions with her, and then she suddenly said, “Well, I’m afraid that’s it. Each student having a nervous breakdown gets five sessions, so I’ll see you on your way.” It was really years before I could afford to see anyone. Consequently, I’m still in therapy. I’m still trying to make up for lost time.
If you could go back in time, what advice would the Sigourney Weaver of right now give that young woman?
I don’t know that I would tell her anything. I think I’d just give her a hug.
I can only say that it had a silver lining looking back, which was that I came to New York not even expecting to have a career. I wanted to work in a cake shop. I thought that would be nice. Or maybe get a job in a bank, so I could touch money even if I wasn’t making money. So when I came into a room to audition, I was pretty reckless. It was the only way I could get over my fear was to just be so out there, because I figured that they didn’t know what they wanted anyway. They just need to see something that felt alive. I could give them that. And so, in an odd way, it helped me.
What are the most important rules that you live by?
Look around yourself. Understand that everybody needs to be seen and heard. Try to always come from kindness, because it’s a balm. That’s the thing that I think allows us as humans to keep going is that unexpected kindness. If there were kindness in Congress, we might actually have a working Congress.
Another rule is… my mother was English. So I really don’t believe in complaining. [Sotto voce] “…Sigourney said, complaining.” [Laughs.] I’m a pull-your-socks-up-and-get-the-job-done kind of girl. Slithering around in unhappiness over the fact that your mother didn’t pick you up from second grade on time or something, that’s not going to help you today. Just get out there, spin your dial, and let the day make you feel better. We always underestimate ourselves. Unless you’re talking about crazy people who overestimate themselves. We have one of those who’s the president.
Who are your heroes and why?
Oh, my gosh, I have so many. I would say the first living hero I had was Ingrid Bergman, because I worked with her when I had just gotten out of drama school. I was in a company with her, and she was such a generous, kind, gracious woman. I learned later, when I read her biography, that she had just had a mastectomy, and her friends put this [theater company] together to kind of help her come through that. I was just astonished about how graceful she was to someone starting out. You know, I would always creep into her dressing room like I was a thief and say, “Oh, hi Ingrid, do you have any valuables?” And she would just laugh and say, [Ingrid Bergman voice] “Oh, Sigourrrr-ney, you know, I always give them to my companion!” I’d say, “Just checking, just checking.”
My heroes right now would be the women politicians who are trying moving us along more than ever. The ones standing up for our rights. I feel like we all have to be AOC now.
What was your favorite book as a kid?
I always had my nose in a book. It was my real escape. Though my mother was always reading horrible things to us at a very early age, like Robinson Crusoe and Ben-Hur, where you end up being terrified of lepers or cannibals or something. I don’t know what she was thinking! You’d get a little bit of Alice in Wonderland, then a lot of this other stuff. But yeah, it’s still so important to go into your own world with these books and be a nerd.
What’s the most indulgent purchase you’ve ever made?
I have a garden in my place in upstate New York, where gardens have a very brief life every year. They say fall [there] begins on July 4th. So putting in a garden was a bit mad, to be honest. But there’s something wonderful about being up in a world of lakes and mountains and evergreens, and suddenly there’s this little patch that’s filled with flowers and hummingbirds and butterflies and bumblebees. It’s like paradise.
I thought you were going to say putting a swing in your apartment in Manhattan.
[Laughs.] Well, I put the swing in to remind myself to sit and look out at the city, because I tend to get caught up in things. But it hasn’t done its job, or rather I haven’t allowed it to do its job, which is to sit there and let your parasympathetic being take over for 10 minutes. We’re not here to just push, push, push, race, race, race, achieve, achieve, achieve. I try to find now, at my advanced age, a way [to] just be in the world and experience it.
What music still moves you the most when you listen to it, no matter how much you’ve heard it?
I’m so lucky, because my husband is a big jazz fiend. There’s a lot of that in the house, and I never get tired of it. Bossa nova is the best. If I have to do something hard, I’ll always put on Brazilian music, or sometimes African music.
What is your favorite city in the entire world?
That’s easy. Paris.
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What in particular about Paris do you love?
I love walking down the streets just noticing all of these different people, all ages, all just being so French. [Laughs.] I have great respect for how the French approach things. My best friend is French — her name is Catherine [Letterrier], she did the costumes for Gorillas in the Mist — and I’ve been able to [stay] with her family over the last 45 years. Just being part of that culture is a continuing education to me. You walk around the city, and it’s like [pointing] “19th century, 18th century, 19th century, 17th century.” I think their priorities are very different than ours.
What do you think our priorities are?
Faster. More furious. Get more done. Hurry. It’s the one thing I wish I’d never said to our daughter: Hurry up.
