Sigourney Weaver: Ripley's Game

Q: When Alien3 was released, you sounded almost relieved that your character was going to die.

A: I felt a little guilty doing this new one because I had really wanted Ripley to die. One of the reasons I wanted her to die, though, was that I had heard they were going to do Alien vs. Predator. That was so hideous, I thought, "They're crazy to develop this great thing over the years and now they're just going to shit all over it." It's different now at Fox. I had other ideas about Ripley's death, though.

Q: Which were?

A: Ultimately, I think we take death for granted as our way out. Things get too hard, we can split and be gone. But in this future, you can split and someone can bring you back, whether or not that's what you want. I thought, "Wow, that's an amazing thing to grapple with. That's what she's got inside of her."

Q: Why, aside from the fabulous payday, did you want to make Alien Resurrection?

A: I was seduced by the script, which is really good, the best Ripley I've ever gotten to play. Then I met Winona and just liked her so much right away. I think she's an amazing actress and person, terribly funny.

Q: You mean it wasn't the fabulous costumes?

A: I do have a very nice costume, my best by far. It's very tight brown leather, lots of straps--just beautifully cut, very practical. This movie marks a real departure in many ways, but the director didn't want a departure costume-wise. He wanted the grungy look of the other movies. We couldn't go as far as we wanted with the costumes, but my costume is exactly what I wanted.

Q: You're considered to be one of the least diva-like of actors, but I heard you had a bad argument with your director. Care to elaborate?

A: One day that I can remember, I was coming down with something. I was very frustrated because sometimes the language thing got to be difficult. I had thought of a scene one way and--obviously, with each Alien picture, I have stronger and stronger ideas about what's important, about what the audience wants, because I'm the one they tell when they meet me. Anyway, there was something Jean-Pierre didn't want to focus on and I just had a sense of the rhythm the picture needed in order for the ending to work. Jean-Pierre didn't agree. That was a tough day. I was just feeling under the weather. I didn't do anything big. I left the set for a minute, twice. That was my form of a nervous breakdown. When I came home I got really sick.

Q: You had director approval, didn't you?

A: Yeah, I did. And I should have.

Q: How did it go when you met Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, who was originally offered the movie?

A: We didn't really talk about the script as much as what it was like to do a giant Alien picture. He had some concerns, which I guess I didn't put to rest. He said, "I like to work with my actors and not have 200 people standing around." I said, "Look, between you and the actors, it's exactly the same as making a small film. It's as intimate as you want to make it. The only difference is, if you say, 'I don't like that door handle color, paint it blue, you will have 200 people standing around waiting while they paint it blue.'" I'm surprised he made the decision he did, because the script is so marvelous.

Q: I recently ran across a photo of you and Mel Gibson, looking ravishing at Cannes 14 years ago when The Year of Living Dangerously competed. In that shot and that movie, you two have a chemistry that makes me have to ask: did you have a crash on him?

A: Yes. I loved Mel. I didn't have a crush on him so much as he sort of restored my faith. Here was a guy who was so good-looking but didn't care about that, loved his wife, carried her around because she was pregnant, made sure she took vitamins. He was just, like, a regular guy. [But] if he hadn't been married, who knows? I think one of the reasons I married my husband [theater director Jim Simpson] was he reminded me of Mel Gibson.

Q: You competed at Cannes again this year with The Ice Storm. How did the experience compare?

A: You know, you said "ravishing" a second ago. What I remember about that time was not that I was particularly ravishing at all, but that Mel was so beautiful that when we walked down the Croisette, I felt like an observer watching the world discover Mel. He's such a sweet person, I couldn't have been happier for him. We loved working together and I just felt very happy that I knew him. He was so "Mel." Back then, I didn't feel very secure. When I returned this year for The Ice Storm, I felt like part of the community.

Q: Didn't Peter Weir tell you right after you started The Year of Living Dangerously he was shocked at how little you knew about acting?

A: Yes. He was actually kind of cranky. When I was at Cannes the first time I also remember feeling relief that every frame I shot for the movie was in the movie. At the casting session, Peter had told me that my role was one of the things he might even get rid of entirely. I remember doing this now kind-of famous scene where I walk through the pouring rain to Mel's office. We were shooting this scene in Manila and we could do only one take. They turned firehoses on me and I was, like, bodysurfing. Meanwhile, the extras--villagers, really--weren't cooperating because they were very unhappy with our being there. After he yelled "Cut," Peter came up to me and said, "Whatever you were doing was completely wrong. We'll reshoot this in sunshine." But shortly after, we got death threats and got thrown out of the Philippines. Luckily, the continuity girl had quietly printed the take we had all thought was a disaster.

When it came up on the screen in dailies, there was something so amazing about it that Peter stood up and said, "That's the movie." That meant so much to me because it had really thrown me, when someone I respected as much as Peter said, "That sucked." I wasn't very secure then, anyway. I'd had such an awful time shooting Eyewitness, and I'd been fired by Nicol Williamson from "the Scottish play" Macbeth.

Q: It's bewildering that people didn't try to pair you and Mel again right away. If it had been the old studio days...

A: ... We'd have been doing mysteries, romances, musicals, I know. We could have danced down to Rio together. [Laughing] I loved working with Mel. He had no qualms about my height. He was just cool. The Year of Living Dangerously is one of the four good ones I've made. Even though Mel and I have the same agents, you still have to kind of engineer it. I'm only a few years older than Mel, but Hollywood thinks more along the lines of, "Let's put Harrison Ford together with Anne Heche."

Q: Or Julia Ormond.

A: It's the actors who want to do that. It's male vanity. It's some sort of male fantasy that no matter how old they get, they want to be with a very young woman. I don't think I was under consideration for 6 Days/7 Nights, the movie Anne Heche is going to do with Harrison, although I'm sure I'm a few years younger than he is. I never understand why these movies don't even mention the age difference, make it something you can play off.

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