Sigourney Weaver: Portrait of a Heartbreaker
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The Hollywood Interview Podcast - SIGOURNEY WEAVER: PORTRAIT OF A HEARTBREAKER ALEX: The Hollywood Interview (pause) Sigourney Weaver Revered as the leading American actress who combines indomitable strength with old world elegance, Sigourney Weaver comes by both naturally. Born Susan Alexandra Weaver October 8, 1949 in New York City, the daughter of legendary NBC TV President Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, and English actress Elizabeth Inglis. During his tenure at the network, Pat Weaver is credited with, among other things, inventing the desk-and-couch talk show format that still dominates the airwaves today, as well as creating both the "Tonight" and "Today" shows. Her uncle, the late "Doodles" Weaver, was a popular comic character actor whose face was familiar to both film and TV viewers through the late 1970's. Re-christening herself "Sigourney" after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Weaver attended Stanford university as an undergraduate, majoring in English, moving on from there to Yale Drama School, where Meryl Streep was a fellow student. After working for several years in well-received Off-Broadway productions, Weaver made her film debut in Woody Allen's 1977 classic Annie Hall (she's Woody's date outside the movie theater towards the end). It was in Ridley Scott's groundbreaking Alien that Weaver became a bona fide star, playing Lt. Ellen Ripley: part sex symbol, part Earth mother, and part double-barreled action hero, the first film heroine of the post-feminist era. Weaver reprised the role in three sequels: James Cameron's blockbuster Aliens, Alien 3 , and Alien Resurrection. THI Sigourney Weaver 1 Weaver followed Alien with an impressive filmography of diverse work: as Mel Gibson's lover in strife-torn Indonesia in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, the object of Bill Murray (and a nasty entity)'s affections in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. Two completely divergent roles in 1988 brought her Oscar nominations (and Golden Globe wins) as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively: as doomed naturalist Dian Fossey in Michael Apted's Gorillas in the Mist and the cutthroat corporate exec whom secretary Melanie Griffith tries to emulate in Mike Nichols' Working Girl. She did a charming turn as a disillusioned First Lady who finds love again with Kevin Kline's Dave, and gave a chilling portrayal of vengeance stretched to its limits in Roman Polanski's Death and the Maiden. Copycat had her visiting similarly intense territory as an agoraphobic psychiatrist caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a serial killer, while Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) showcased her patrician qualities to their utmost in a chilling turn as a bored upper middle class housewife in 1973 Connecticut. In Map of the World (1999) she gave a powerful performance as an educated woman out of place in her rural community, while Galaxy Quest (1999) gave her opportunity to flex her comedic muscles again as a former sci-fi TV show sexpot who is forced to fight off real-life alien monsters! Weaver's latest firmly establishes the actress as a gifted comedienne. Heartbreakers tells the blackly comedic tale of Maxine "Max" Conners (Weaver), who along with nubile daughter Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt), have made their living conning some of the country's wealthiest men out of their fortunes. When their latest con against sleazy chop-shop king Ray Liotta doesn't quite go as planned, the women decide to hit THI Sigourney Weaver 2 Palm Beach, the Mecca of the rich, and make one last big score before retiring for good, setting their eyes on repugnant, ailing tobacco kingpin Gene Hackman as their mark. When Page falls for a good-hearted local tavern owner (Jason Lee) who might, or might not, be harboring a major bankroll of his own, things get complicated. Heartbreakers is a funny, down-and-dirty comedy that will leave you with a smile on your face long after the end credits have rolled, and Weaver is a delight to watch, working her magic alongside fellow acting heavyweights Hackman, Liotta and (in a wonderful cameo) Anne Bancroft. Sigourney Weaver sat down with Venice recently over lunch, looking every bit the elegant lady in a tailored red suit. Tell us about what drew you to Heartbreakers. Sigourney Weaver: I think I've been looking for a comedy for a long time, and to find a comedy that has two powerful, sexy, funny devious women...I just thought it was wonderful, and (director) David Mirkin just kept encouraging both of us to be as ruthless and confident as we could! (laughs) I was also drawn to the mother-daughter aspect of the story. Underneath all the sort of Dirty Rotten Scoundrel elements of the story, I thought there was something very real going on between the mother and daughter. This is going to sound terrible, but I can understand conning your daughter to get her to stay home a little longer! (laughs) I know, because I have a daughter. Even thought she's only 10, I can understand not wanting to let her go. How was it working with Gene Hackman, who I understand is a real hero of yours. I was worried, because I thought 'How can I play someone who's so repulsed by him?' because I think he's fabulous! Then he came in wearing this horrible make-up, oozing smoke. THI Sigourney Weaver 3 (laughs) You'd never believe it, but Gene's never smoked! He's been a total non-smoker his whole life. But he was able to do all those things that smokers do, having the cigarette just hang there, not getting the smoke in his eyes. It just got all over me! This is definitely a non-smoking movie. Is it true that comedy is the hardest thing for an actor to do? I don't think it's the hardest thing for me to do. I think I feel more at home in it sometimes than drama, probably because my father did a lot of early television drama, so there was a great priority in our family on being funny, and telling jokes, stuff like that. It's just harder to find a good film comedy and a director who understands how to shoot and cut it. Getting all those elements to work is what's hard, and when Heartbreakers came along, I knew how special it was...also working with Jennifer was wonderful. I felt that we really could have been mother and daughter. We had about three weeks of rehearsal, so we really got to know each other pretty well. She was also really sweet with my daughter. I could see a little bit of your Working Girl character in Max. Well, I actually felt a little sympathy for Max. I think in her heart, she knew what she was doing was wrong, but still felt that the end was justified. Luckily, she's redeemable. My husband saw the film again last night and said "You know it's really hard for us to like her in the beginning." But, if you get caught in these situations, I think a mother will do anything to protect her daughter...If you think about it, what they do is a combination of acting and psychology. I never realized how much psychology was involved in conning. You really have to be able to disarm people, and get them to trust you. It's fascinating, really. THI Sigourney Weaver 4 Your scenes with Ray Liotta looked like you guys were having a lot of fun. I think Ray really steals the movie. He's so out there! Because he has such a big heart in reality, he plays the comedy really well. He's also a real gentleman. There are many times in the movie when Jennifer and I had to be in intimate situations with Ray, and he was always so considerate. That can make a big difference. Show business runs in your family. Are you an only child? No. I have an older brother who lives in Salt Lake City. He has four kids. What was it like growing up around television's "golden period"? I think most children in those days were sort of sheltered from what their parents did. We did have people drop by the house sometimes. I had chicken pox once and Art Linkletter came by. We have a movie of it, actually. (laughs) As far as I was concerned, everyone's father ran a network. My father clearly loved what he did. He had come from radio, then started running TV stations, and would always come home laughing. I knew that it was not a fair business early on, because dad had some real ups and downs. He started the first cable company in '63 and was put out of business illegally. I knew that it was a rough business, but a great business. So when I came into the business, my expectations were really low. I never thought that success or fame would make me happy. Fame looks much better in the movies than it does in real life. Were you always drawn to acting? No. I was very shy as a kid. I'm always amazed when I hear people say things like "I've always wanted to be an actor since THI Sigourney Weaver 5 the age of eight," because I would have never had the confidence to say that. It looked impossible to me. I was hesitant to follow in my parents' footsteps, but it was in my blood.