Sigourney Weaver is the OG when it comes to badass females in films.
But believe it or not, Weaver wasn’t always a glamorousHollywoodactor with a resume stretching on for decades.
And she wasn’t always named Sigourney, either, which might sound crazy, but it’s true!
Read on to learn all about thestunning transformationof Sigourney Weaver.
“I wasn’t sure I could succeed at this,” she continued.
None of that hesitation ended up stopping Weaver from becoming an actor in the end, obviously.
“It was an act of desperation, because I didn’t like being called Susie.
Now I’m ‘Siggy,’ so it doesn’t matter.”
“It was long because I was long,” she shared in an interview withParademagazine.
“I was too tall for ‘Sue.'”
Fortunately for Weaver, the errors of her faculty were recognized by former dean Robert Brustein and later rectified.
“It’s my fault that I believed them, but I stayed,” she continued.
I didn’t realize the people who were running the acting department at the drama school hated actors.’
And they were fired when I graduated."
Can you imagine being the professor who overlooked a talent like that?
It was just so much fun."
Sounds like an amazing experience!
After that, Weaver was an unstoppable superstar, and the movie spawned multiple sequels over the years.
“The story was originally all men,” she revealed in an interview withParade.
“But the writers thought it would be very timely to have a woman be the sole survivor.
Nobody saw her coming.”
“When something bad happens, Ripley says, ‘OK, here’s what I need to do.’
She does her duty and never gives up.
I’d be the person cracking jokes to deflect the terror.”
I remember thinking, ‘Well, he’s going to be abachelorfor many years.'"
At the time, Weaver had aboyfriend, so nothing else happened that night.
“Then I asked him out to dinner, and three months later we decided to getmarried.
That’s how it happens.”
“I knew it would be big,” she confessed in an interview withParade.
“The script was so funny and full of heart.”
She noted, “Ghostbusterschanged my life.”
“It was really the chance to be possessed by a dog.
I thought that would be fun,” she admitted in an interview withHarper’s Bazaar.
“I love the idea that a cellist would turn into this crazy ghoul.”
She alsosigned onto return once again as Dana inGhostbusters 2020.
She received Oscar nominationsfor both roles, making her a double nominee at the 1989 Academy Awards.
“She’s a very strong character,” she shared in an interview withThe Guardian.
They were very pro-Katharine."
“Aren’t I going to get the guy?”
In 1990, Weaver and Simpson welcomed Charlotte Simpson into the world, their first and only child.
Congratulations, mom and dad!
“I’m kind of a gooey… “She seems very nice about the fact that I’m very attached to her.
We never went through that period of not getting along.
I kept expecting it.”
“I always have to discipline myself,” she continued.
“Because you’ve got to let them go.”
Fortunately, Simpson was never bothered that his wife had a higher-profile career.
As Weaver tells it, he was just happy “that one of us could make a living.”
“If I didn’t have such a supportive husband, I couldn’t have done it.”
“As it was, I did about one project a year,” she continued.
“But I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”
It was a very new idea.
I was really lucky.”
Well, lucky and insanely talented!
Additionally, Ripley has been an inspiration to actors like Jennifer Lawrence forThe Hunger Gamesand Charlize Theron forAtomic Blonde.
Again, Weaver is pleased.
There’s a greater sense of sisterhood."
Still, Weaver would like to see more effort put forth to make Hollywood more inclusive.
“I think the answer is the unions and the studios need to actively start embracing that now.
“We just finished shooting two and three,” she revealed in a 2018 interview withThe Hollywood Reporter.
Additionally, Weaver is excited about how the films will pick up where the last one left off.
In this one he got to tell this very personal story,” she continued.
“They’re amazing.
There’s a message to not sacrifice everything for greed and conquest.”
She added that it will take all four films for the full message to become apparent.
But Sigourney Weaver doesn’t mind the process one bit, and she’s said she enjoys getting older.
“I love it,” she revealed in an interview withParademagazine.
“I enjoy working with younger people because I learn so much from them.
That’s great news for women in the industry!
“So I’ve always played interesting people, and that’s continued.
It’s not like I suddenly have to figure out who I am now.”
