The role nobody wanted Sigourney Weaver to play: “No one thought I could do it”
By the time the late-1990s rolled around, Sigourney Weaver was at the very top of the Hollywood A-list. A decade earlier, she received three Academy Award nominations in quick succession: ‘Best Actress’ for Aliens in 1987 and a double bill of ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ for Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl in 1989. She parlayed that prestige into a decade populated by a couple of commercial hits (Dave and Copycat) and two more Alien sequels. However, when she pursued a role in a 1999 film that would have reunited her with an old co-star, she found, to her frustration, that no one wanted her to make the movie.
When Weaver first got wind of a hilarious script doing the rounds that operated as both a spoof of the iconic sci-fi series Star Trek and as a bizarre love letter to the show, its actors, and its fans, she decided she wanted in. To her delight, her Ghostbusters co-star Harold Ramis was attached to direct the film, so she may have thought she was a shoo-in to play Gwen DeMarco, the actress who portrayed a sexy character called Tawny Madison in a fictional Trek-esque show known as Galaxy Quest.
However, to her chagrin, Weaver soon discovered that Ramis didn’t want to cast anyone with a history of sci-fi roles, meaning her iconic performances as Ellen Ripley in the Alien series disqualified her. Naturally, Weaver wasn’t one to take no for an answer, telling MTV, “I insisted on being seen.” She was vaguely offended by Ramis’ unnecessarily isolating parameter, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “Frankly, it’s those of us who have done science fiction movies that know what is funny about the genre.”
Weaver proceeded to fight for Galaxy Quest, despite admitting to Eye For Film, “No-one thought I could do it.” You see, despite being a massive fan of the comedy genre and displaying some genuine comic timing in the Ghostbusters movies, there was a general impression of Weaver as a “serious” actress. In fact, even when Ramis left the project, and Weaver convinced new director Dean Parisot to hire her, the casting still baffled the movie’s male lead.
Tim Allen – a man known exclusively for comedy and being a bit of a problematic sort – was cast as the William Shatner-esque Jason Nesmith, and he admitted to MTV that he couldn’t quite understand why a prestigious Oscar winner with her own franchise like Weaver was so keen to make a rinky-dink spoof like Galaxy Quest. “At first, I thought there were two Sigourney Weavers,” he joked. “Literally, what was she thinking? It looked like a smaller movie at first. She had just come off one of the Aliens, and I said, ‘Why would she do this?'”
To everyone’s surprise, though, Weaver not only committed 100% to Galaxy Quest’s ridiculousness, she also proved how willing she was to make herself look silly for the sake of comedy. However, because she is a great actress, there was a deeper meaning to her approach to the character. “The first thing I said to Dean was that Lieutenant Tawny Madison had to be blonde, and she had to have big boobs,” Weaver chuckled. “I loved Tawny from the first moment I read the part. To me, she was what a lot of women feel like – including myself – in a Hollywood situation.”
Ultimately, despite receiving pushback at almost every turn, Weaver delivered a great performance in Galaxy Quest. In fact, she still counts it as one of her favourites from a long, distinguished career. “I love that movie,” she said in 2023. “The movie is a love letter to all actors who go off and do these crazy stories.”
These days, the film is a cult classic with a dedicated following who don’t care that it flopped upon release in ’99. Heartwarmingly, Weaver claims it’s also one of the top three movies that fans approach her about. “When people shout at me on the streets of New York, it’s Alien more than anything,” she smiled, “but Galaxy Quest is right up there second as much as Ghostbusters.”
