Sigourney Weaver on her unpredictable career

2022 is shaping up to be a very good year for actor Sigourney Weaver. Yet another stellar chapter in a storied career. You are such a city girl and look at you out here. Well, I think that's why I like it so much. You know, we in the city need to come and get our hands dirty and smell the soil. And it's very inspiring. At the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, lifelong Manhattanite Sigourney Weaver is in her element. Are you harvesting? Sure. Well, yeah. Yummy. Botanical garden grown. Oh, it's delicious. Really good. So pretty, right? They say that with a garden, you plant the garden. First year, it sleeps. Second year, it creeps. Third year, it leaps. But there's never been a year like this one for 72-year-old Sigourney Weaver. Four movies in the next four months. I usually have something simmering. And so it looks like I threw some magic beans out the window and they all suddenly went like that. Cuddling with gorillas. Cavorting with ghosts. The three-time Oscar nominee is a commanding presence in power suits. Hi, I'm Catherine Parker. You must be Tess. And iconic in space suits. One of the first badass heroines in space. Get away from her, you bitch! Warrant officer Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise is how Sigourney Weaver made her name. Though she was born Susan Weaver, Sigourney was the name she took for herself from the novel The Great Gatsby when she was 13. I had great trouble saying at the height of six feet, my name is Sue. So small. And I just saw this name and I went, oh, I love that. It goes on. That's fantastic. I like the look of it. Three syllables. I thought I'm going to use that until I can figure out what name I'd really like. Because I'm not going to use a crazy name like Sigourney. It was absolutely a placeholder. My pretend name was Giselle. And you went with Sigourney. And that wasn't a stage name. No. We both had parents who were not expecting the careers that we went on to have. Did your parents think you could act? I'm sure they didn't. Her English mother had a career on stage and film in the 30s and 40s. Her father was a pioneer in television in the 50s. Sylvester Weaver created both Today and The Tonight Show. I think that they were horrified that I was going to take this on. My father thought it was good to go to drama school. That would probably shake this goal right out of me. And it almost did. Weaver attended the Yale School of Drama. I didn't really belong there. I wish I'd gone to like Second City or something. She felt like a fish out of water. And the faculty seemed to agree. They were not supportive. Explicitly so. Yeah. I have to say they could not have been meaner. And the irony was that they were fired when I graduated. So the lesson to me is don't believe what your teachers tell you. Deflated but undeterred, she returned to New York City with a new attitude. What did she have to lose? When I went to an audition, I was just trying to inhabit that character for a few minutes just to be able to work. And I wasn't trying to get somewhere because I figured I wouldn't. So I just thought I'm going to just do my thing. After four years on stage off off-Broadway, her first film appearance was a small non-speaking role in Annie Hall, followed barely two years later by the Ridley Scott blockbuster Alien. I got really lucky. You sort of came out of nowhere. So how on earth did that miracle happen? I remember thinking it's science fiction. It doesn't matter what I do. I wore these very high hooker boots that made me about seven feet tall. I stalked into that meeting. Ridley asked me what I thought of the script. And we just started to talk. And I could see the casting person in the background who was kind of going like, you know, doesn't really want to know what you think, dear. A superstar had arrived, but she didn't play the part. It certainly didn't make me want to have a film career, which is ironic because I was in a very good position. So I didn't really do anything for a couple of years. I went back to the theater and I just felt I really wanted to learn my craft. Now, in the fifth decade of her career, the long awaited sequel to the box office record setting Avatar arrives in December. But in the coming weeks, she'll be seen in Master Gardener. You think you can run around the backyard in the middle of the night, paying a little visit to this one here? No, I'm not. Stop that. Stop what? Call Jane, a timely and provocative film about abortion set in pre-Roe 1960s. You're going to rest for a few hours. Which one of you is Jane? We're all Jane. And out this week, The Good House with Kevin Kline. She plays a recovering alcoholic. Hilde, would you like to have a seat? Well, if we're really going to do this, I need a drink. Oh, my God. Kidding. Here's this woman who was at the top of her game, who's sort of slipping and fighting against ageism. Her assistant's stolen all her clients and she's being pushed off her perch and she decides to fire back and fight back. You know, how many projects are there where an older woman gets to do any of that? Like, none. With more than 60 film credits and still counting, Sigourney Weaver seems to have found her place and at her own steady pace. And that's the secret of Hollywood longevity. I think I was very lucky because I wasn't a babe, but I could play a babe. I wasn't this, but I could play that. So I would always just pick the story and not the role. And I thought, is this a story I want to see? Is this a story about something I really believe in? It has cumulatively shown a lot of different fun things that I got to do. The lady's got range. Well, that's, I think, for me, the greatest compliment. So thank you.