My husband is from Hawaii and his father who was also born in Hawaii was a teenager when Pearl Harbor happened, right before church and he ran up and got on the roof of his grandfather's house and watched the planes go over.
Sigourney Weaver
My father was always very interested in space. I watch Star Trek and all those things, but I always had a different picture in my mind... maybe closer to Alien. I don't see it in space as much as I do see it in different planets, with each having its own strange characters.
I love playing an alien.
I think I have always tried to do the smaller films. I like to jump around and there is something really nice for acting in a smaller film. But I think now, Hollywood's movies certainly involve a younger generation for the most part and so... I love going back and forth.
Every role sort of teaches you how to prepare for it.
Here's a vice: I say yes to too many things. I wish I had the guilty pleasure of saying no. My goal is to try to do less, but more fully.
I have always been uncomfortable with a series of movies. I hate that word 'franchise' - it always makes me think of French fries. What I felt each time was that we were going for broke, that this was going to be the last in the series. You can't count on anything.
I still am in touch with several friends from high school. I don't go to reunions much. I'm afraid that if I go back to the school, they'll suddenly go, 'You know what? We've checked the records and you still have one more French class. Get back in here.'
I think that every piece has its challenges. I love going back and forth between one and the other. I'll always pick a comedy over a drama.
I love the role of Ripley.
I actually think the reason I am interested in certain parts is because I was such a dweeb in high school. When you are such a loser, it's a helpful way in to a lot of characters because even very powerful people are not all that powerful, really.
I've always thought that a lot of the problems in the world would be solved if a spaceship did arrive, then anyone with one head and two arms and two legs would be your brother! It wouldn't matter where they were from or what they believed or anything. It might be good for us.
I love working quickly. I don't like to do thousands of takes, and I don't want to do thousands of set ups.
I worked hard and made my own way, just as my father had. And just, I'm sure, as he hoped I would. I learned, from observing him, the satisfaction that comes from striving and seeing a dream fulfilled.
I am more of a New Yorker than ever and just actually, sometimes I fantasize about living somewhere else, where it's maybe not quite so crowded or stressful, blah, blah, blah and after September 11th, I guess I could just not imagine living anywhere else.
Writers write these male stereotypes, and it makes it ten times more interesting if a woman says the lines.
I wanted to play a mother again. I thought it would be interesting to play the mother of an older child. And it was also the kind of part I've been looking for my whole career, actually, in film. You know, just to play a femme fatale who's very smart, and wicked.
People who run environmental groups and things like that, who have to listen to all kinds of nonsense and keep their tempers, are very diplomatic and very inclusive.
I've been very fortunate to be able to jump around. I just did this really wonderful film called Map of the World. That was a real, amazing, dramatic story. Then I did a movie called Company Men, a little comedy about the Bay of Pigs.
Every time there's a really good story, there's women in it. We may not get as many roles, but the roles we get are really good, I think, for the most part.
When I look around the world, I don't see too many damsels in distress. If they're a damsel in distress, they're manipulating some guy to help them.
For the camera, particularly, I feel like - I think that, as human faces become older, they become more interesting.
I'm always the last person they go to with a sequel, because I'm the most skeptical. You know, I'm very proud of what we've done, and I don't want to screw up our series.
Being tall has a major impact in general. It takes some courage to be as big as you are - to live up to it and not be intimidated by the graceful tiny people.
Secretly, I had always wanted to go to Vegas, and have my own really bad act!
I consider myself very much a team player.
If you come back from the dead, you don't have the same value system, I think.
It was actually a relief for me to play an actor who was scared, who didn't know where everything was, who didn't know what buttons to push, and for me to be able to play all that.
I don't really see science fiction as fiction. I can imagine colonies on Mars and everything.
There's a lot of conning as part of our society, I think.
Sometimes you trust someone who turns out not to be honest. There are a lot of things that happen in life that don't turn out the way you're given the impression that they will. And I think that's all kind of a con. But I think we've probably all been hurt.
Usually it's the guys that don't follow you around, who you're attracted to!
With Alien, because we always use a different director, each one kind of stands on its own. So I guess it's possible for them to make another one, but we have no plans.
As an actor, the second and last ones were interesting for me. Because those parts had the most change in playing someone who was both light and dark, sort of Jekyl and Hyde.
I'd be more interested in doing a smaller, character driven thing, rather than another action picture.
What makes these creatures so awful is the feeling that they can use us in ways too horrible to imagine-and yet, we DO imagine them, which makes it worse than seeing it.
I'm no Ripley. I had doubts that I could play her as strongly as she had to be played, but I must say that it was fun exploring that side of myself. Women don't get to do that very often.
It's rare when you have everything going perfectly all at the same time.
I just feel that getting out there physically and protecting New York, putting my arms around everyone and protecting them... to see this happen to our city and our community.
I don't want to leave New York and leave my family. I don't like the distance. I just did a movie in California and it's kind of excruciating to be away from them so I think there is that sense.
Maybe you're better to play a villain just straight out.
One of the reasons I did this, because I wasn't really looking for another science fiction film, was that my daughter can see it. She's 9 and it's really a good film for all ages.
I always find it particularly difficult to work in New York because there are so many things to do.
It's such a nice change to get to play a wretched, shallow, mergers-and-acquisitions woman. My true colors come out.
I never think about Wall Street - why should I - but to go down there so often while filming 'Working Girl,' to become acquainted with this whole different world, and to find out what goes on behind the scenes, is so interesting. There's so much of the city that you don't really bother to investigate. Ahh... New York.
I had always done theater in extracurricular ways. I'd never been a drama major.
I changed my name when I was about twelve because I didn't like being called Sue or Susie. I felt I needed a longer name because I was so tall. So what happened? Now everyone calls me Sig or Siggy.
That whole generation that's gone now, that lived through the two world wars, is a great example to all of us. They knew how to live. If something bad happened, they didn't sit at home, eat Haagen-Dazs, and watch a movie.
I feel self-doubt whether I'm doing something hard or easy.
I was at an all-girls' school, so there were a lot of us who were really awkward. I was this tall when I was 11, so I was really awkward and self-conscious. No one would really have wanted to be mean to me. I was too unimportant.
