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.