For all of us Sigourney Weaver remains Lieutenant Elen Ripley, the strong heroine painted by Ridley Scott in the 1979 epic film Alienwhich launched it throughout the world.
Sigourney Weaver: extraordinary performer
Since then the actress, who is now 74 years old, has had an extraordinary career: she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in ’81 Venice International Film Festival, held from August 28th to September 7th). The Venice Biennale announced it.
These are the reasons: «In the role of an authentic collaborator rather than a simple tool that can be molded by the hands of a directorcontributed to the success of the films of James Cameron, Paul Schrader, Peter Weir, Michael Apted, Roman Polanski, Ivan Reitman, Mike Nichols, Ang Lee and many others, each time managing to leave an indelible mark on his charismatic presence as a complex, sometimes contradictory, always authentic figure. Gifted with a great temperament, capable of moving delicately but without fragility, she imposed an image of a confident and determined woman, dynamic and tenacious, not without revealing, with ever-changing nuances, a feminine sensitivity of intense magnetism. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement is the rightful recognition to a star that you have known building bridges between the most sophisticated auteur cinema and films that communicate with the public in a frank manner and original, without ever giving up being itself.”
Sigourney Weaver’s career
His career, which took off with the role in Alienthe first female lead in a science fiction film, ranges from Woody Allen (a small role in Me and Annie) a Ridley Scott (Alien) to get to James Cameron (Avatar), but also the saga of Ghostbusters and a painful and powerful series like Listen to the forgotten flowersset on a farm in the Northern Territory of Australia, the portrait of a community of women halfway between a home for victims of violence and a sect devoted to flowers.
Sigourney Weaver picked up seven Golden Globe nominationswinning it in 1989 in the Best Actress in a Drama Film and Best Supporting Actress categories for Gorilla in the fog e A career womanbecoming the first actress ever to win two Golden Globes in the same year.
Alien, his first big success
But it’s mostly because of his role in Alien that we all remember: a female heroine, a feminist icon and the undisputed heroine of the 80s and 90s, the only one to survive the fight with the alien creature in a film that started out as a B-series story, which grossed ten times its cost. The script – very simple – was the basis of its success: a thriller of all against one, the monster, who in the end eliminates the entire group, except one, who survives. Precisely her, the lieutenant, the space heroine, the first, imitated by Jodie Foster in Contact e Sandra Bullock in Gravity.
The protagonist was originally supposed to be a man, then during the various revisions, the role was tailored in his image and likeness. AlienSigourney Weaver and her director, Ridley Scott, have thus created a long-running saga (eight films, including three sequels, two prequels and two spin-offs) and incredibly original: for the first time, horror comes from space.
The trailer for the latest one Alien: Romulus
A horror that never stops gripping us, so much so that another film will be released on August 14th, Alien: Romulus.
The film is directed by Fede Àlvarez and the story it tells takes place between the events of Alien of 1979 by Ridley Scott and AliensJames Cameron’s 1986 sequel. Instead of Sigourney Weaver, actress Cailee Spaeny (seen in Priscilla by Sofia Coppola).
A chameleonic actress
Sigourney Weaver has played many roles, a sign of her extraordinary ability to change her skin. We highlight some of the most significant ones.
After the first interpretation in Alienhere she is playing the role of an embassy employee in A year lived dangerouslye (1982). After the science fiction-horror genre and Ghostbusters (Hollywood family blockbuster), the actress plays a beautiful love story, eroticism, espionage. The story is set in Indonesia in 1965, during the coup against Sukarno.
Only she, then, could bring to the screen the life, passion and death of zoologist Dian Fossey (died 1985) in Gorilla in the fog (released in 1988). Physically similar, the two they had in common their commitment to environmentalism and the defense of endangered species, which has always been the actress’s battle. The film recounts the years spent in the forests of Rwanda, observing mountain gorillas. Until the final sacrifice.
Here then is her talent giving us another of her most iconic roles, after Lieutenant Ripley in Alien. In A career woman (1988), Sigourney Weaver, with padded shoulder pads and masculine boxy suits, embodies the ambiguity of the feminine in the 80swhen to assert themselves in places of power women “disguised” themselves as men. Without her Katharine Parker, a boss willing to do anything, Miranda Priestley would not exist The devil wears Prada. With her, an amazing Melanie Griffith and an unsurpassed Harrison Ford.
She is also the first Hollywood superstar to agree to work with Roman Polanski in Death and the Maiden, in 1994. It takes courage, as an American actress, to accept to act for “the damned” and, above all, “outlaw” Polanski. Then others will come (Jodie Foster, for example).
In Star Trek & Co Sigourney Weaver doesn’t hold back and demonstrates great irony: the cast of an old science fiction TV series finds himself attending a fan meeting, while aliens descend on Earth. Another important role in Avatar (2009), where she plays Dr. Grace Augustine who leads the avatar program and teaches the language to the Na’vi, studying their culture. Finally in A year with Salinger (2020) the actress takes on the difficult role of Margaret, JD Salinger’s assistant. A true (and bitter) story, seen through the eyes of her young assistant (a debutant Margaret Qualley), in which she is perfect at embodying power.
