Sigourney Weaver on the Alien Anthology

How cool is it to get to interview Sigourney Weaver and just talk about Alien? Usually she’s promoting another movie and maybe you get an Alien reference in there. Now that the Alien Anthology is coming to Blu Ray on October 26, Weaver is just talking about Alien with the press. Well, she has Avatar coming out too, but the point is there’s nothing stopping us from asking all the Alien questions we want!

CraveOnline: I always liked Alien Resurrection and wanted to see what happens to Ripley’s clone when she gets back to earth. What are your thoughts on the fourth film? 

Sigourney Weaver: Well, I really enjoyed a lot of Alien Resurrection. I thought that the scientists were really wonderful and the company was more detestable than ever. As we become more and more of a corporate planet, I think that the lessons from Alien have not really been paid attention to. But I loved what the evolution of the character of Ripley. I wasn’t too keen to come to earth. I always feel that science-fiction when it comes to earth, it’s a little [mimics yawning]. I wanted to go back to the original planet that the space jockey brought the eggs from and go back into the alien world rather than have the alien arrive in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. So I think I was part of what put the kibosh on that. I think actually after four different interpretations, I wanted to take more time to take stock of what the opportunities were. I think it’s great that Ridley is the person who’s going to make the prequel because I think there are other opportunities there. It’s wonderful to reinvigorate that world with a fresh perspective. 

CraveOnline: Do you think it’s important to keep it R-rated? There’s talk of trying to go PG-13. 

Sigourney Weaver: I think unfortunately, because movies have changed so much and gotten so much gorier, that nowadays probably Alien would be PG-13 because there wasn’t much blood in it. Except for the swearing, I don't know. It’s tricky. That’s a good question. 

CraveOnline: We do tend to focus on the first two. What are your feelings on the stamp of Fincher and Jeunet? 

Sigourney Weaver: You know, I think that with Social Network, everybody now is going to be able to recognize Fincher for being one of the great directors of our day. Certainly that was true after Fight Club, etc. I think that what I love about each of these directors is they’re really unsentimental. I think it got harder for Jean-Pierre. The story is much more about the science and about the corporations. I think it’s difficult for us to watch the fourth one because it seems like yesterday or tomorrow. It’s not happening far away. It seems like something we read about in the papers, cloning or BP and all this stuff. So I think it makes people more uncomfortable but I think they all really stand up. I’ve heard people arguing over their favorites and three and four have a lot of fans.

CraveOnline: Ridley has said he was never asked to do the second Alien and would have liked to be asked. Did you sense any friction between films? 

Sigourney Weaver: Well, you know, what happened was they never set out to make a sequel. Jim Cameron wrote Aliens on spec. He was being interviewed by our producers for something else and he said, “I’ve written this script of Aliens. Would you read it?” They hadn’t even thought about doing it. So it was his baby from the beginning and he did such an amazing job. It would have been fun to go back to Ridley to do another one but in those days, you didn’t do sequels. He was busy doing whatever he was doing. 

CraveOnline: A Ripley who’s already died, wasn’t happy to be back and probably had to make peace with it. 

Sigourney Weaver: Yeah, I know. Because we were thinking about doing this fifth one and I didn’t really want to go ahead and do it and do it on earth, so we kind of left the sentence unfinished. There’s something slightly unfinished to me about it. Again, it’s not something I really sit around [and think about]. I would have liked to see Ripley try to have a normal life, try to find happiness, at least for a little while. I feel we owe her that. 

CraveOnline: This is already the 3^rd version of Avatar in a year. What do you feel each version adds to the film? 

Sigourney Weaver: Well, Jim has shown me everything in the DVD and one of the things I think is so exciting is that he shows about 45 minutes of what we did in the volume, the performance capture and how it ends up. I think what will astonish the audience, particularly the actors, is that for instance if you take Zoe’s performance, everything, every nuance that’s in Neytiri’s existence comes from what Zoe did in that volume. Nothing was added. When she takes her bow and arrow, this huge monster bow that this little creature had to pull and actually shoot an arrow and everything, so I think it’ll just show certainly the acting community and audiences around the world how much performance capture champions the actor’s work, puts it first ahead of all the technology. It’s a very organic process. Everything we had to climb or fly or fight, we had something that was real to work with. We didn’t have a potted palm or something. It’s much easier on the actor than green screen or blue screen where you have to imagine everything. That’s means you’re not acting, you’re imagining. There’s a big difference. 

CraveOnline: Has he shared with you any ideas for how Grace might be in an Avatar sequel? 

Sigourney Weaver: He has a little bit but I’m not at liberty to tell anything. He just said, “You know, in science fiction, death is not really death.”

CraveOnline: Well, that’s good news. 

Sigourney Weaver: Yeah, so we’ll see. 

CraveOnline: I’ve been coming to terms with why we love our monsters, whether it’s Frankenstein or Freddy and Jason or the alien. Why do we love these monsters? 

Sigourney Weaver: Yes, and the good creatures always have something in them that’s human. I don't know about Freddy but Frankenstein of course is such a great example. I guess it’s probably part of our genetic makeup sitting around in the cave hoping our light won’t be seen by something bigger than all of us. In Japan in the summer they always show ghost stories because in the old days they didn’t have air conditioning and it would send a shiver down everyone’s spine and keep them cool. So I think we’ve integrated these monsters into our culture and they’re endlessly fascinating, especially the human ones because what is it that makes someone act monstrous? When I was shooting the vampire movie, they were doing Hostel III on the floor below us in this Masonic temple. You could hear the screams of the actors. That’s not the kind of movie I’m interested really in seeing but a good monster movie with real depth, and maybe they are, I don't know, I haven’t seen them. I’m not really interested in gore but I am interested in a good yarn with a great monster.

Q: Has there been any talk of your involvement in Ghosbusters III? 

Sigourney Weaver: Yes, I got a call from Ivan Reitman. I think everyone who’s involved would love to get together again. I think everyone’s working on really trying to create a wonderful original story. I just said, “That would be fun and please make sure my little son Oscar grows up to be a ghostbuster.” And he said, “Absolutely.” Then I think he directed this other film and is busy editing it so it kind of got put on hold, but I would be surprised if we didn’t do it.