Ripley is Forever
Monday, March 2, 2015 at 11:01AM There are few movie characters as iconic as Lt. Ellen Ripley, the accidental but determined warrior so superbly played by Sigourney Weaver four times over in the five film Aliens franchise (1979-2012). Soon to be six or seven if Ridley pursues his Prometheus sequel and Neill Blomkamp and Sigourney actually make good on their plans to bring Ripley back in 2017 on the heels of their first collaboration Chappie (opening Friday).
While James Cameron's Aliens (1986) hogs most of the attention when it comes to Weaver's franchise headlining work (including a well deserved but very out-of-comfort-zone Oscar nomination for Best Actress) she's actually pretty stellar in all four of the movies. [More...]
That's not often the case with actors who stick with the same role for decades. She's wonderful as the sweaty bald Ripley Interrupted in Alien³ (1992) who can't believe it's happening again. She's even better, uncomfortably great maybe, in Alien Resurrection (1997) as Ripley Cloned, a Ripley who is not quite Ripley; not for Sigourney any coasting.
Over the weekend, I read one of my favorite articles about Aliens (1986) in a long long time. Matt Zoller Seitz showed it to his son and his son's friends (a group of 11 year old boys) and relived the experience of seeing it for the first time through young eyes. Yes, it more than holds up nearly 30 years later. People are fond of saying 'it's one of the Best Action Movies of All Time!' but why qualify it? It's one of the best movies of all time.
Reading the article transported me back to my first time, seeing it with a great school friend. He was the first boy I ever admitted (to myself) to having a crush on. I don't remember why it was only two of us because at that age we usually travelled in packs but I remember everything about the drive to the movie and that he made me laugh out loud when the lights went down and he dramatically whispered "I'm scared of the dark!" teasingly because he knew I was scared, breaking much pre-movie tension. Of course James Cameron would immediately rev the tension back up and 137 minutes of exhilarating movie later I was an obsessed James Cameron/Aliens/Sigourney fan. The fandom stuck.
casual reminder that sigourney weaver is 65 years old & this is a picture of sigourney weaver pic.twitter.com/VvWBtM3Uga
— Sales on Film (@salesonfilm) February 26, 2015
This recent burst of Sigourney press is very welcome. Make sure to read this very fun Interview magazine piece by Jamie Lee Curtis ("hey, frenemy!") if you haven't already and check out the scorching photos. Sigourney's still got it.
CURTIS: There are not many women who worked with Jim Cameron, as we did, who didn't marry him. And you're about to work with him again.
WEAVER: [laughs] But there's still time for us to marry him. He's only been married five times. Surely he can make it an even seven.
They even share stories about auditioning for The Cotton Club (1984) and pursuing/not pursuing their husbands.
I know I've blogged this next bit before but it remains the case: Sigourney Weaver's 3 Oscar nominations may well be the most representative of anyone's Oscar nominations in terms of showing their whole career. You've got her facility with aggressive drama, her iconography-ready minimalism in genre movies, and her marvelous comic instincts in Gorillas in the Mist, Aliens and Working Girl respectively. Keep hoping for a fourth nomination! The next few years of her career don't actually look all that promising (a bunch of Avatar sequels, the "Grandma" role in A Monster Calls) apart from this Ripley outing. My secret wish is that there will be an improbable movie adaptation of Vanya & Sonya & Sasha & Spike, the Broadway play she headlined in 2013 in which she was just hilarious as a warped narcissistic aging Oscarless actress diva best known for a sci-fi franchise. Hmmmm. Ripley will remain Weaver's defining role (I don't think she minds) but she's such a comic talent that we'll remain hopeful that her improbable Oscar will come within that genre.
Reader Comments (21)
I love her.
For some reason I love reading that as shade at whatsherface from Titanic. Is there any other way to read that? I'm pretty sure there's no interpretation of "he has two more marriages in him" besides "either she will die or her marriage will fail."
I've commented on this here at TFE before but the book is tremendously sad., and while I doubt that A Monster Calls will end up being the sort of movie Oscar ends up liking the book does work with really serious themes, and if the filmmakers decide to go where the story goes, it could amount to more than you seem to be thinking, Nat. Sigourney's "Grandma" character could actually be a great role - there is meat to be dug into in there. And JA Bayona's proven himself interested in actually getting performances out of his actors in strange surroundings before, so I have my fingers crossed.
Ooooh, if they made that movie with the original Broadway cast, including Mr. Magnussen, that would be great. I haven't seen the play yet but plan to this year.
Also, "Gorillas in the Mist" made me basically bawl my eyes out at the end when I saw it as a...9-year-old? 10? I haven't seen it since but I should. She was so fascinating and powerful in it.
I read that article by Matt Zoller Seitz yesterday, and it brought back memories for me too. I jumped several times during that film, and then showed it to my nephew and was gratified that he found it very scary too. I love Ripley, love the films, and Sigourney Weaver. She seems very high on Bloomkamp. She really enjoyed working on "Chappie", which is about robots, and it sounded very interesting.
I hold out hope for another nomination for Weaver, she is a very effective actress in both drama and comedy. With the right role, I could see her getting some Oscar love.
Oh no, you didn't. Now they are going to be 200 comments saying she should have won in 86 and I'm going to die in the process.
P.S. Love her, especially in Working Girl and Heartbreakers.
Sigourney Weaver, the rich man's Kathleen Turner.
All hail Ripley!
A nd also she has a more diverse body of work from the 90's onwards
Death and the Maiden,Dave,The Ice Storm,Galaxy Quest,Copycat ,A Map Of The World,Alien 3 and Resurrection & Jeffrey plus a hilarious turn in the little seen 2007 gem The TV Set.
How the hell did Kim Basinger beat Julianne Moore and the not even nominated Weaver (for The Ice Storm) in '97?
I showed the movie recently to my 10 year old nephew, so I loved reading seitz's article because it was so much like my own experience. my nephew loved Vasquez and was amazed at how long it took to get to the first major action scene.
Hayden, both had kind words for cameron in marriage number five while promoting You Again. http://m.hitfix.com/blogs/awards-campaign/posts/sigourney-weaver-and-jamie-lee-curtis-discuss-the-not-so-new-james-cameron
Loved this post.
Ryan: Basinger's not BAD but she's not a winner, but, regardless of what you thought of the film, Titanic wasn't an actors showcase and everyone kind of knew it, Boogie Nights was about porn and wasn't going to win ANYTHING and as far as the other two nominees...MAYBE if they had been nominated for their infinitely superior Grosse Pointe Blank work they could have snuck a win. As is, I'm proud LA Confidential got more than one Oscar, even if that second Oscar should have been a tech prize instead of an acting win.
Ryan: My top 5 for supporting actress 1997 would be:
Joan Cusack, Grosse Pointe Blank - winner
Linda Fiorentino, Men in Black - 5th
Bridget Fonda, Jackie Brown - bronze
Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights - silver
Sigourney Weaver, The Ice Storm - 4th
I hope Jane Campion uses Sigourney. She was the original inspiration for The Piano. And Campion's first choice. Weaver deserves to be a multiple Oscar winner. Reality dictates her best option is another possible career nomination in either category.
Sigourney should've won the Oscar for Aliens... that was a full-blown performance from Weaver as she became the ultimate badass.
Yay for Sigourney! :)
I remember watching Aliens and thinking "holy crap that was a scary movie!" I then watched Aliens and was completely blown away by the action sequences and how much more terrified I was. It is still a very scary movie, no doubt.
My two favourite performances of hers [besides the first two Alien movies ;)] would have to be in The Ice Storm and Heartbreakers.
She's great in the former funneling the neurotic tendencies of not being fulfilled and having affairs with everyone to excellent affect and deserved more accolades than she received, while the latter is a movie I can watch over and over again and still find hilarious each time. Gene Hackman's cigarette infused billionaire with nagging hacking cough is dynamite! The chemistry between everyone in the cast is just great and have she and Jennifer Love Hewitt ever been sexier or funnier in a movie since?
In the first sentence I meant Alien, the first one
<Sigourney Weaver's 3 Oscar nominations may well be the most representative of anyone's Oscar nominations in terms of showing their whole career. You've got her facility with aggressive drama, her iconography-ready minimalism in genre movies, and her marvelous comic instincts in Gorillas in the Mist, Aliens and Working Girl respectively.>
Indeed. It's a crime they ignored her for The Ice Storm (and my favorite supporting actress of 1997, Debbi Morgan in Eve's Bayou). And if Prayers for Bobby had been released in theaters, that most certainly would have been nomination number five.
maybe she can reprise katherine parker if ever there's a film version of gene belcher's work hard or die trying, girl
i would've awarded her for both working girl and the ice storm (now there's some range)
I first saw "Aliens" at the neighbor girl's house. I was 10 and she was 12. We watched it in broad daylight and we were STILL scared shitless. I love that she got an Oscar nomination for it, and that it's the same year that Kathleen Turner got nominated for "Peggy Sue Got Married." A sci-fi *and* a comedy being represented in a major acting category? I LOVE IT.